Updated (28th July 2008): Thank you to everyone for their comments, this is clearly a contentious issue.At the moment, as an advertiser, the opportunities that Phorm present are interesting. After all, we are always looking for better ways to target advertising to consumsers on behalf of our clients.
Consumer opinion is critical though, and will ultimately determine the success or failure of Phorm through direct action or by them walking away from their ISP. This is a very healthy situation.
Phorm are planning on offering 'freebies' in exchange for opting in. Phorm won't be for everyone, but as everyone has their price, I am sure that they may achieve the critical mass to become useful to advertisers and agencies. Only time will tell if that is the case and I am sure it will be a fierce debate in the interim. Just take a look at the comments this post is receiving to get a sense of the passion that people quite rightfully have for their future privacy. Therefore something like this must be on an opt-in basis.
I have Phorm coming into the offices to discuss their offering in more detail and dependant on the nature of the discussions re confidentiality then I will feedback thoughts at that time.
Original Post:
BT recently announced that they would be trialling the Phorm ad network on their ISP back end, and join the ranks of Virgin Media and Talk Talk from Carphone Warehouse.
Put simply, Phorm is an ad network that works by recording the pages that ISP customers visit and then serving ads that are more relevant to that user. They use a sophisticated system of unique code numbers as apposed to identifiable consumer data, and will categorise the sites visited in pre-determined buckets.
But there has been consumer backlash, most recently highlighted in a New Media Age survey. It states that 65% of UK adults would leave their ISP if it adopted ISP-based behavioural targeting, and 81% wanted the ability to opt-out.
But I think consumers may have got the perception wrong, or have not digested both sides. [edited]
There are a multitude of software vendors that sell tools to remove cookies from your computer, like they were an evil plague. But cookies are used for a variety of applications, and in the context of advertising help the user to have a better experience by targeting more appropriate ads.
This is exactly the business that Phorm is in, they are just monitoring and serving using better technology.
Consumers need to realise that advertising pays for most things they do online. Advertising online is not going to disappear. Advertising is not an evil entity, and as such isn't it more useful or enjoyable for them to at least be shown campaigns that are relevant to them?
What's more, consumers are already happily engaging this advertising of this type. Visit any major ecommerce site and you will be shown products that best match your purchasing history. Amazon led the way on this?
Is Amazon evil too?
19 comments:
Nice point- made me think. I would want some sort of bonus though for the revenue that I was creating for the ISP
Cookies aren't evil, just the people who abuse how they are supposed to be used.
You wouldn't say kitchen knives are evil because a criminal used one to stab someone.
Thomas: This may come in the form of giveaways.
Anon: Agreed, to quote the rap song (what on eart do I know about rap!) - guns dont kill people, rappers do ;-)
Consumers need to realise that advertising pays for most things they do online.
So offer me the choice. As an ISP, you pay XX for the ad-supported service, YY for the non-ad-supported service. When I installed broadband in my house it cost something like forty pounds per month for 500Kbps. Indeed, the first Internet connection I signed off on, in 1992, was about forty thousand pounds per annum for 64Kbps.
It's now about twenty pounds for a nominal eight megs. If the effect is to pauperise the ISP, well, I didn't ask to have the price reduced and the bandwidth increased, and if they now turn around and say ``well, the only way we can fund this price reduction is by doing this other thing'' the obvious response is ``well why did you do it, then?''
S
Phorm is very different to any other method of 'profiling' you've encountered before.
Phorm see literally everything that passes in front of your eyes (and a good deal else too).
The content they copy in transmission isn't the end users to give away by agreeing to a discounted service. The content belongs to the copyright holder. A copyright holder has the exclusive right to make copies of their literary works, at least here in the UK, and so operating Phorm creates a limitless copyright liability for an ISP.
But its not just data that's being taken off the wire. Its marketing intelligence too, mass industrial espionage in effect. Seeing the communication between web sites & e-commerce businesses and their customers allows Phorm to promote lazier competitors. In the UK, we have a law called RIPA which requires BOTH parties to a communication to agree to interception.
So why does this matter? If ISPs exploit content using Phorm, expect to see the following events in quick succession. Firstly, all e-commerce sites will become completely encrypted (and Phorm won't be able to profile using encrypted traffic). Also, expect the range of ecommerce services to decline (because publishing e-commerce web site is futile if that data can simply be copied, adapted, and sold by an ISP without regard to its owner). Also, expect to see ISPs that adopt Phorm blocked from web sites (net neutrality is a two way thing).
And finally, expect to see a market in your personal data develop, using the Phorm UID (because it will leak).
Think too about the effect on freedom of speech. You would have to right to every ISP across the globe to beg them not to share your communications with a third party.
And if you look to the horizon, your web traffic is just data on the wire. So is email, so is VOIP, so is SMS, so is your ordinary telephone service. What is the logical reason for not including those sources of data in your profile too? Or put it more colloquially 'universal surveillance' for the sake of marketing. Web surveillance is the thin end of a wedge.
Phorm must be stopped.
Pete: Thanks for your thorough comment. I have them coming in to discuss all such issues before making the decision as to whether to allow iCrossing to use them or not. Intriguing at this stage but there are questions. My overall point of the piece was around the reason for the consumer backlash.
So you have them coming to see you to give you the pretty PR speech that assures you how they are the best thing since sliced bread, how they actually protect peoples privacy, and how their product helps against phishing and how they are actually nicer than google and respect peoples privacy more than google do.
When you listen to them and ask questions, consider this: why are so many people against them, and before joining them with blanket statements such as "the consumers are wrong" think about the fact that consumers pay the bills.
Upset enough consumers and you can kiss your profits goodbye, it's a simple equation really. If you upset your customers, they go elsewhere.
If they are so much better than google, why are they so insistent on using the google user agent to determine if they are allowed to intercept and use the information from a website? If they were truly concerned, they would have their own user agent, and not rely on the google one.
If they were really pro-privacy, they would want to separate themselves from a company that they insist doesn't respect privacy surely?
If they were pro-privacy their whole system would have been designed from the ground up with a proper opt-in mechanism, not a dodgy opt-out that relies on cookies (which a lot of users delete at the end of every session and get opted back in, or have to face an interception screen at the start of every new session), but your data still passes through the profilers method. (They do promise not to look at it though.)
Their whole system was designed to be installed to capture all customers data with a cookie based opt-out. That is hardly respectful to the consumers.
And just one point, you claim that phorm is an ad-serving platform, that is incorrect, phorm is intra-isp-spyware, the open internet exchange (www.oix.net) is the advert serving side of the platform.
As for the claim that BT will be joining the likes of talktalk and virgin, did you do any actual research of your own, or did you take phorms word for it?
Neither of those companies have trialled the product other than in the lab and neither have sigen firm contracts to deploy the system, BT are the only ones to have carried out covert trials on live customer data (in technical violation of the law according to the UK ICO) so saying BT will be joining the likes of... is incorrect.
I would suggest you read some of the sites campaigning against phorm before you meet with them, arm yourself with some questions and demand proper answers rather than PR speak.
Search for Dr Richard Clayton and look at his analysis of the system, and then ask why people are against it.
Don't just assume the consumer is wrong, arm yourself with some knowledge and then ask questions. You will win more customers by listening to what they want than you will by telling them they are wrong when you clearly failed to research why they oppose the system.
This debate over tracking/profiling isn't about the value of advertising. It's not about the value of privacy. It's about trust and behavior which negates trust. Consider this:
1. Supermarket reward cards profile you in very personably identifiable ways, names, addresses, pucrhases, and they didn't even bother promoting their profiling schemes as giving consumers better x through profiling, they were all "customer loyalty schemes". Yet they are welcomed and used by millions.
2. Online tracking and profiling systems operate in reasonably anonymous ways, and they are reviled.
How is this? Because the first was voluntary (opt-in in internet jargon) and a real, easily proven reward was offered.
The latter whether it was 3rd party tracking cookies being placed secretly (and yes it was done secretly, the fact that people discovered them doesn't change this) by companies that weren't intersted in telling conmsumers ANYTHING at first, to adware placed on ytour computer without your express informed consent, to BT conducting secret trials modifying their customers webpages, denying they did this when specifically asked, and even letting Phorm get around BT's own "we're not going to place cookies on your computer." policy. Although I can't prove it, my instinct about the manner they have conducted themselves suggests neither BT nor Phorm had opt-in in mind.
And these are the people we're supposed to give access to every bit of unsecured internet traffic? Even if we're completely wrong about their motives, what have they done to make us think we are wrong?
This behavior is not the same as Amazon recommending books based on your own purchases with Amazon.
I understand that advertising funds pay for a lot of the free content on the web, so I don't villify advertising in general, but there is a big difference between the current cookie based tracking (which is easy enough to interupt anyway) and the new plan to use deep packet inspection to follow me to every site I visit.
Using DPI also leaves us open to the possibility of eventual mission creep and also leaves ISPs with a potential single point of failure for all it's customers. Imagine if the DPI equipment on the ISPs network failed.
My biggest concern is with the ethics from the ISPs point of view. I pay them rental every month for my connection and any data that passes over the connection belongs to me. This is a fact that has been repeatedly backed up by the ISPs when they've been asked to take responsibility for the traffic content in the past... They say they don't own it and are "just a conduit" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7059881.stm).
Why do they now intend to sell this infomation? Surely selling something you don't own is still illegal?
Thank you all for your continuing comments, but let's keep them constructive. It is a fascinating topic area and you have armed me with some great questions to ask Phorm in our meeting.
Some responses to your posts:
Anon S: There are already some ISP models around the world that offer this type of packaging where a reduced price is possible by looking at advertising. Ultimately consumers will determine the success of such a system by its uptake. Not a bad idea though.
Pete: These are very interesting points, and I will be adding them to my list of topics to discuss with Phorm. I don't agree with all of them but think it right they are debated openly so services like Phorm can be given boundaries in which to operate.
Anon: I feel more than capable Anon of being able to assess a company's offering without being blinded by their 'pretty PR speech'. I did call it an ad-serving platfrom knowing that this isn't the most accurate term for them, but in the context of a media agency it conveys the message. I would not neccessarily call them spyware, but I understand your meaning.
Re research. Yes its my own as I havent spoken to Phorm yet. Virgin and Talk Talk have been playing with the technology, but they have not yet rolled it out live. They will make their own decisions based on user feedback and testing.
Amazon just track me on their site. And I can stop this if I want to.
But Phorm will track me everywhere, and I can't stop it even by opting out, as all my traffic goes through their kit at my ISP even so.
This is way too intrusive.
Also, tracking me on other sites and reading the pages I look at means that Phorm is riding on the back of all the hard work of those website creators, just to serve me ads relating to those products when I am elsewhere.
At least Amazon stands or falls by the quality of its own website, and whether or not we mutually get value from it, Amazon and I, in the form of me making further purchases from them.
Also, it is really better technology? If I visit Google, Phorm will fake a Google cookie with that special Phorm Id in it. And likewise if I visit Microsoft, or PC World, or Amazon. Or here for that matter.
Amazon, at least, only create Amazon cookies.
And those forged cookies - any one of the sites I've visited can read back 'their' Phorm cookie, learn my Phorm UID, and marry it up with anything they have - my IP address, even my name and address perhaps. So bang goes that much-vaunted extra privacy - it's a sham.
Finally, should we trust the people behind Phorm? Well, they clearly don't trust us. Those who signed up to their software in good faith in their previous incarnation as 121Media found that they couldn't uninstall it, if they decided they wanted to - they found themselves rootkitted into staying. Nice freedom of choice - not.
So far, and as best I can tell, Amazon haven't rootkitted me, and they are not proposing to install hardware in my ISP so I can't escape them watching me even if I want to.
So, to go back to your question 'Are Amazon evil?' for doing what you perhaps imply is the same thing - well, no they are not evil, and they are not doing the same thing.
Oh, and nobody got rich by saying consumers are wrong. Firstly, we are not wrong about Phorm.
And secondly, even if we were, it's the perception that matters. If we don't want this thing - and we don't - then it isn't going to happen. Period. Remember GM foods?
The debate has continued on another site. A valuable conversation worth reading:
http://badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?7708.0
Phorm Cookies leak, DPA Nightmare Scenario!
If cookie less option is attempted via Javascript same likely scenario, without these how will the Phorm System identify any individual surfer behind a Home or Residential Router?
Sharing full Personal Information with a Third Party would also be a DPA & Privacy time-bomb!
In short this system cannot work without the full cooperation of internet users & Website Owners which is highly unlikely.
I leave you to make up your own minds on the other Privacy issues this may involve!
My boyfriend has been telling me about this for sometime. It's absolutely disgusting that BT (or Carphone Warehouse Talk Talk, or Virgin Media) could be allowed to listen in on world wide web stuff that i am looking at on line! Totally outrageoues - really!
i mean, i would goi mental if i found that anyone was tapping my phone so they could come door knocking to sell me stuff. and the same if the post office was doin it to select junk mail.
very wrong and any company that supports it is a bad un in my book - i would never give you my money - not even if it cost me a bit more to buy wot i wanted somewhere else no way
it has to be stopped and if the legal people do not do it then the consumer will
rach
What a load of clap trap is being generated. Mass hysteria here we come. Stop being superficial and really take a very close objective look at what Phorm is saying in very fine detail. Try and be more open-minded and look to the benefits this new concept will provide. Nearly all the negative comments I have read so far are obvious and shallow and clearly written by those who should never have commented in the first place or else they should know better than to object to a brave new technology which will eventually benefit all internet users.
Phorm provides a far more effective way of controlling internet privacy when compared to the variety of methods we currently have. At last internet advertising will be controllable without encroaching upon any privacy. It will bring increased controllable and steady revenues to ISP’s who will then be able to improve their services and lower their prices in the same way as commercial TV channels. There are also many other positive spin-offs to this new technology which will benefit all internet users, if only they are prepared to fully read all about the product in depth and visualise the advantages. The three main internet security related providers, favoured by the UK Government are Google, Tesco and Phorm, with Phorm being particularly admired.
Forums and debates are essential in order to make sure we have all the facts to our fingertips and subsequently make fully informed judgements. Unfortunately in this case the full facts are being ignored whilst generating large amounts of mass hysteria about something which will not happen, that is, a breakdown in internet security and privacy when Phorm is being used via ISP's.
If you’ve got something to hide and you still have any unfounded doubts about your invasion of privacy, then don’t use Phorm when asked to. However have faith in this product and read all the specifications very carefully in a positive manner before coming to a final conclusion.
As a IT Architect for a fortune 500 company, and a small-business owner advising executives and high-profile clients on personal security - I will do everything in my area of influence to see this type of technology does not succeed.
Your company and the technology being sold is certainly an example of how greed has blindfolded you to good judgement on the use of the public internet infrastructure.
So now, the gloves come off - You better keep a close eye on all your garbage at home because you can expect to have the contents logged, indexed, and data-mined. Every wrapper, every tissue, every medication box, and everything you throw away. Over time it will all become a statistic.
The marketing world will love to see what products you consume, and the frequency. Some of the data may be personal, or private, but that no longer matters - the information can be sold.
And a new targeted advertizement program will follow. First signs in your lawn for curing jock-itch, or visits from door-to-door salesmen driving cars advertizing divorce lawyers. Perhaps the prostitutes at the curb might make your wife suspicious.
Take your capital and put it to work for something good for humanity.
I do not want my interaction with the web pages I visit intercepted.
Also I do not want my website data profiled and that profile attached to my user so that my user can be sold competing products on one of Phorm's OIX network.
Well, the only mass hysteria and superficiality here is coming from ronthedon :-(
In fact, most of the negative comments are well researched and thoughtful, and from people who know their stuff, both about Phorm and about the Internet.
But please, ron the don, some specific questions:
(i) Please quote one fact (not opinion, not supposition, not pie-in-the-sky future projection, but hard fact) about Phorm that you think its opponents have ignored.
(ii) Please give a reference for your otherwise bizarre and unsupported claim about the Government, Google, Tesco and Phorm.
(iii) Please quote your name, address, telephone number, email address, extent of your commercial and financial involvement with Phorm if any, your salary – how much and who pays it. Oh and your bank account details, amount in each account, and Internet banking pass words, if any.
That last one wasn’t serious of course. But it illustrates, perhaps, that having nothing to hide doesn’t mean you have nothing to protect.
And fortunately, the right to privacy that lets us do that is enshrined in UK and EU legislation.
Giving up elements of that privacy is something we do all the time – the IR knows what we earn, for instance. But we only do it for authorised people with good and sufficient reasons for asking.
So – let Phorm see everything I do on the web, just so its advertisers can try to flog me the latest tat? Do me a favour....
I have spent months checking up on Phorm their plans what they promise to only do. The followed through press reports in other countries from Phorm managers.
What phorm promise is to only harvest keywords to target adverts to the ISP customer. What Phorm management talk of is future function creep which would make the internet as we know it end. The internet is a network of private and business people who al pay to hoist their websites allowing free access if those visiting follow the rules laid out by the website owner. These rules normally include copyright. If they say the images and text is copyrighted and can only be copied temporary for personal use then phorm using the ISP has no right to harvest keywords for commercial gain without contacting the owner asking for permission or a licence.
The websites owner’s could start to charge for access to the content if commercial gain was the end result.
To quote something that has been posted on the web recently which I asked permission to quote first.
Quote from BT beta forums
Just a Reminder to certain BT execs who seem to be saying that putting information on the Internet automatically gives permission for any COMPANY to automatically scan & trawl such data....
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-compute.htm
Copyright applies to...computing and the internet
Copyright applies to computing and the internet in the same way as material in other media. For example, any photographs you place on the internet will be protected in the same way as other artistic works; any original written work will be protected as a literary work, and so on.
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