CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Phorm’ Category

Commission takes UK to court over alleged privacy law failings: “The European Commission is taking the UK to court, claiming that UK law does not protect citizens’ privacy as strongly as EU laws demand. The case centres on the UK Government’s response to the Phorm web monitoring scandal.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

UK gets final warning over Phorm trials: “

Change the law, or we’ll see you in court

Updated The UK government today came a step closer to international embarrassment over its failure to act against BT and Phorm for their secret trials of mass internet snooping technology.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

BT abandons Phorm: “

Not looking good for ad tech

BT has abandoned plans to roll out Phorm’s controversial web monitoring and profiling system across its broadband network, claiming it needs to concentrate resources on network upgrades.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)

Wikipedia latest to reject Phorm ’snooping’ technology: “Wikipedia has joined Amazon.com in opting out of Phorm’s
controversial targeted advertising technology.”

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Whitehall’s got Phorm

In light of criticism from the EU, will the UK government enact a new law on internet privacy or simply brazen it out once again?

Nothing is going well for the Phorm behavioural advertising system this week. The EU commission has started legal action because the UK hasn’t regulated it properly, and now Amazon are joining LiveJournal, mySociety and others in demanding an immediate end to the monitoring of traffic to their websites.

The Phorm system learns your interests by snooping on your internet web traffic. Your ISP does the necessary wiretap in exchange for a cut when advertisers pay a premium for learning precisely what to try and sell you. It’s rather like the postman getting money to peek at your letters, so you can receive a better class of junk mail.

It’s hardly necessary to use the language of privacy, because the law says it’s illegal to intercept internet traffic without permission from both ends of the link. However, legal niceties don’t seem to have worried BT, the UK’s largest ISP. They’ve spent years trying to get the technical kinks out of the system. Last autumn’s trial was half-way legal (or as lawyers say, completely illegal) because they finally asked one end of the link (their customers) for permission; a nicety they ignored in earlier secret tests.

Naturally people have been complaining; to the information commissioner, to the interception tribunal and to the police. The first two don’t think it’s their bailiwick, and the City of London police refused to act; apparently because BT didn’t really intend to do anything wrong – a novel legal theory, which I assume they will be dusting off again after recent tragic events.

Frustrated, the complainers have headed for Brussels, where for the first time they got a serious hearing. The commission saw that EU law was broken and swapped letters with Whitehall. They responded that no UK statute was infringed, either in the recent trial where half the necessary permission was sought, or in the earlier totally secret regimes.

Brussels has believed what they were told – which is not as disappointing as it sounds, for yesterday they took the first steps towards dragging the UK before the European court for a failure to correctly implement EU law and prevent illegal interception. They’re also, to their particular credit, concerned about the process issues, and want to know why there is no institution in the UK tasked with dealing with companies performing illegal interception.

So Whitehall now has to decide whether to enact a new law, or to reread the one we already have and write back contritely to Brussels. Sadly, history suggests they’ll just brazen it out until a European court rules against the UK once again. Our current wiretap laws result directly from adverse judgments in Malone (1984) and Halford (1997). So, as they say in legal circles, Whitehall’s got form.

(Via Latest news, sport, business, comment and reviews from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk.)

Brussels to sue UK over Phorm failures: “

ICO and Phorm respond

Updated The European Commission has revealed plans to sue the UK government over its failure to take any action against BT and Phorm for their secret broadband interception and profiling trials.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament: “

Ertugrul demands privacy panel opt-in

An exasperated Kent Ertugrul took on Sir Tim Berners-Lee in a tense encounter at a discussion on internet privacy at the Houses of Parliament today.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)

Phorm unleashes legal attack on critics: “

Beware the wounded beast

News articles based on a survey indicating public opposition to Phorm’s web snooping and advertising system have been withdrawn after the firm made legal threats to their publishers.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)

EU threatens ‘formal action’ against UK.gov on Phorm

Brussels increases pressure over secret trials
By Chris Williams, Posted in Telecoms, 11th February 2009 14:19 GMT

The European Commission has given its strongest signal yet that it will hold the UK government to account for its failure to act over BT and Phorm’s secret and allegedly illegal internet monitoring trials in 2006 and 2007.

Telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding has again demanded answers from the UK as to why no enforcement action has been taken over the wiretapping and profiling of tens of thousands of BT broadband subscribers without any permission or notification. An unsatisfactory response could eventually land the government in the European Court of Justice.

Speaking to The Register today, Reding’s chief spokesman Martin Selmayr said: ‘The European Commission’s investigation with regard to the Phorm case is still ongoing.’
(more…)

Prosecutors gather evidence on secret BT-Phorm trials: “

‘Implied consent’ to be probed

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is gathering evidence on BT’s covert trials of Phorm’s ISP-level adware system to help it judge whether it is in the public interest to allow a private prosecution for breach of wiretapping laws.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)