Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament

WTF

Granted the only information about Phrom and this Kent moron from El Reg and a couple other sites I've read with information about this whole debacle. However Sir Tim Berners-Lee I am very familiar with and that Kent would even imagine he has the where with all to argue issues such as internet privacy with Tim is not only laughable. But also shows the deep degree to which Kent's denial and total disconnect with the reality of what he is doing; actually goes.

The name alone..

Ertugrul - Sounds like something straight out of Mordor (where the spammers lie...)

Luddite

The Luddite allegation is a false one. The salient point about the Luddites were refusing to allow the advance of the technology because they feared (correctly so) that they would lose their jobs because of it.

Ertugrul has used the analogy wrongly. The public are not rejecting to the use of Phorm because it will do them out of a job. They are not resisting the advancement of technology

Entrugrul is just using the allegation of ludditism because people don't want to be regarded as a luddite, it has connotations of being stuck in the stone ages, blocking the advancement of the human race to move forward.

"If you don't like what we're doing, then you must be a luddite". So to avoid being a luddite, you must change your opinion so that you agree and permit us to develop and adopt the technology.

Psychological tactics, that's all, and not particularly good ones at that!

In my view, the guy's a plonker, but he does have a vested interest...so you're hardly gonna get a fair an unbiased opinion from him.

Why the government is silent

It's been said the government is in a state of denial, or just lacking sufficient awareness to see what's really going on with Phorm. A lack of investigation into the trials.

But has anyone stopped a moment to think, perhaps the government really wants this technology? Phorm claim it's anonymised...yes, I'm sure it is at some point in the system, when the data is passed on to a third party vendor who wants to send out the targetted adverts.

But, the URL of webpages you have access will be held in a database, and there will be a unique primary key value for you, call it a UserID number, you can be sure, elsewhere in the database, that UserID number will be linked to your IP address.

All the government has to do, is compel Phorm to allow government access to the database or data if exported out, in much the same way that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have access to the data held by the supermarkets and the Nectar loyalty card.

Government..call it the Security Services, and eventually, any other tom dick and harry department will be given access to it, it will be exchanged ( via the new legislation going through Parliament right now). The police will get access to it in due course too, to see if you're downloading any so called extreme porn, which falls foul of the new porn laws.

You think this won't happen? !!!

@Tony

Grief, I was a little relieved to realise it hadn't happened. Yet. Last trip to US a couple of years back wasn't far off. Even Finnish TV's getting that way*.

Beauty is, we'll get so imune to it, it'll be like background/traffic noise, NOT subliminal advertising that the admen expect. Bit like racking up the number of CCTV cameras in Britain - the watchers will finally get overload and ignore what they see.

However, when that day finally arrives, all I want to know is how to operate the three seashells in TacoBell....

* One other trick Fin-TV has learned from the US is to increase the volume by 6dB or more during ads. As we live in a quiet block, inhabited by many old folks, we simply MUST turn the TV to mute during advertisements. Otherwise, we've a possibility of eviction. Seriously. Defeats the object of the excercise. Being bored with this, we watch about 2 hours of TV per week. Mostly on public (YLE1 or 2). Golden goose - RIP.

Trial

So, has anyone direct experience of the BT trials and were they asked to opt-in? Or has every savvy Register reader ditched them already...?

Good to know that Ertugrul reads El Reg, though!

Says it all!

You've got your wankers on one hand and your lying wankers on the other....but both hands belong to Phorn.

I refer the noble gentleman to the reply given earlier! Says it all! Thank the Lord for Firewalls and cookie blockers/removers! Gary