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[bracknellexile]

It's been a while, but it seems Phorm have stuck their heads above the parapet again...

Interview with Dow Jones

They seem to think that they'll roll out on BT by the end of the year. BT seems less sureInteresting to note in the Dow Jones interview that they're still working on a cookie-based system - an idea that provoked the most scorn when it

Comments

[princealbert]

What I don't get about Phorm is the fact the tech savvy press, (el Reg, Boingboing, Inquirer and to a lesser extent BBC), haven't pointed out that their major claim for placation of us is absolute bullshit.

No cookie set on their website can be used to opt-out a browser unless all the browsing of other sites is performed through a frame which we know it is not.

[bracknellexile]

I think (and this is off the top of my head so I may be wrong) that the process is something along the lines of:

• You send a request for a web-page via your Phorm-friendly ISP.
  
• The ISP intercepts the request, sends a temporary page that gets the cookie
  
• It then fetches the real page, passes it to the Phorm server along with your cookie's ID, analyses it to update your profile and passes it back to you.
  
• If the page you requested has advertising space for Phorm-ads and your cookie says you want to see them then the system puts adverts into the page it sends you based on your Phorm profile.

Funnily enough, Phorm are refusing to clarify whether they still intercept and process all your web traffic even if you've opted out of seeing the targeted adverts.

[princealbert]

Phorm as a system will fall over if they do the above. It works by skimming off the switches installed in the ISP, as soon as you start serving even the smallest of webpages and cookies you incur bandwidth and for the traffic they need to be solvent it will be next to impossible.

[bracknellexile]

We can but hope. May depend on how much cacheing they have. Like I said, I might be wrong on the details of the process and presumably they've got enough tech people on board to make it work given that BT have already run several trials.