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Bad Phorm

Posted in Uncategorized on April 9, 2008 at 7:08 pm

I’ve been interested by the news of Phorm, the ad-targeting system, and how bad it is for everyone’s privacy and the such like.

What drew me to it initially was a comment from a representative of BT on a news programme who suggest that BT had sought legal advice and found that not informing a focus group of in excess of 30,000 customers that they were taking part in a trial of Phorm was not illegal. It may not have been illegal, but it was certainly immoral to take a gander at users data without an actual reason to - it’s not like they were looking into potential illegal activity, or had been compelled to by the Government. Would it have cost BT that much to have said to those 30,000+ customers “Hey guys, we’re going to test this system out. This is what it does… do you mind? We’ll knock a few quid off your internet bill for the duration of the test?” Okay, maybe it would cost them money, but they wouldn’t be feeling such a backlash now.

However, my concern is the nature of ad-targetting. I dislike adverts on the Internet, but I see the necessity for some websites to make money from click-through advertising. In the same way that I’ve noticed some forums that I sometimes visit take part in affiliation schemes to help cover the cost of administering servers. It’s a necessary not-so-evil. I dislike it when you’re reading a website and certain keywords are underlined and you drift your mouse over the word to have a little window appear showing you stuff; but, I don’t have to click on anything that’s presented to me. I dislike it when a website gets the idea (through targetting) that because you searched for a term you might want to look at other links, though I don’t mind it when Amazon, for example, offers me alternate products I might be interested in. I don’t mind banners and I’m glad to see that pop ups aren’t as prevalent as they once used to be. I’m not even particularly bothered by those websites that intercept your click and insist on showing you an advert unless you click “Skip to article.”

What I am concerned about is the idea that Phorm seems to decide what I might be interested in by sending a package of data to a server and storing a random number to help identify you (no IP or other data, apparently) so it can sort through its collection of ads and let me see stuff I might be interested in! Seriously? What makes Phorm think that I’m likely to click on an advert instead of doing a web search to find what I’m looking for? Hey, don’t people “Google” for stuff as it is? I don’t hear people saying “I’m gonna banner click for that.” What assumptions is Phorm making about me and the way I and other people use my computer (yes, I know I should have different accounts for different people but really… “Dave, can I use your PC to check cinema times?” “Yeah sure, just let me log out and log into a guest account.” “Why? What you hiding?”) I guess what I’m getting at is that this seems to me to be a more invasive system than I’ve been used to previously.

Okay, okay, perhaps some people do click on advertising banners and pop ups - after all, someone must be the one millionth viewer to the site and be a guaranteed winner. I know that, on occasion, I’ve clicked links for Microsoft, or a bank offer or an invitation to acquire a Thai bride (okay, the last one I didn’t do), but at least those things were ephemeral in nature. Will Phorm realise that my search for a something is over and how long will it be before it stops serving me the ads? Not only that, does it think I will notice if it’s serving me ads? How will Phorm know if it’s doing a good job - ignoring an ad because you’re not interested in it is different to ignoring an ad, isn’t it? Argh, now I’m confused. Maybe I’ll have to opt out.