Another Major ISP Boots Phorm Not a great few weeks for snoopvertising company It hasn't been a particularly good few weeks for Phorm, the snoopvertising (adversnooping?) agency that began life as a spyware company dedicated to rootkits. British Telecom this week confirmed they wouldn't be proceeding with Phorm's Webwise platform, and now major UK telecom player Carphone Warehouse says they'll be terminating their relationship with Phorm as well. Phorm, which partners with ISPs to sniff your time spent on various sites to send you more "tailored" adverts, has global expansion ambitions that may not succeed if they can't find a source of actual revenue. Another major UK ISP, Virgin Media, tells the Wall Street Journal they haven't made up their mind on whether they'll use Phorm's services.
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  funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | Send out those resumes, Phormer employees I actually hate to dance on your grave, Phorm, because you truly tried hard to answer the concerns. But, ultimately, access to everything we see and say on the 'net -- even algorithmic access -- is simply too high a cost.
The whole episode reminds me of that funny scene from a South Park episode where the leader of NAMBLA says that he learned that America is about the freedom to be whatever you want to be, be it black, gay, or a pedophile, and that pedophiles cannot choose to be attracted to boys, they're born that way. Kyle disgustedly rebuts this saying, "Dude. You have sex with children!" to which Stan adds, "Yeah, you know, we believe in equality for everybody, and tolerance, and all that gay stuff, but dude, fuck you!" (»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartman_Joins_NAMBLA)
Ads that are better targeted to my interests and needs are better than ads that have no relevance to me. But if it means that the advertisers get to analyze everything I see and say on the net, then it's just not worth it.
The real villain in this episode, however, is not Phorm -- it's the ISPs who gave Phorm hope in the first place. They allowed Phorm to think that our data streams were for sale when they should have known better. The ISPs wasted Phorm's time and money (and ours, too).
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL
Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth, or by misleading the innocent. --Spock and McCoy stardate 5029.5 | |
|  EUSKill cancerPremium
join:2002-09-10
canada | How long Before they regurgitate re-brand this company again? | |
|  |  TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY | Re: How long Of course Google is already doing this, there is an plugin for Firefox that lets you know who is watching what you are doing and Google Analytics are always there watching, and at least on Gmail you have targeted ad's.
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I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption | |
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| | All I can say is... Phuck you, Phorm! | |
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