The Internet Advertising Bureau wont bite the hand that feeds them !!!!!!!!!!
as the title says, FFS its their own body we are talking about, not a legal eagle INDEPENDANT official watchdog, since when can ANY industry be trusted to police itself and NOT be biassed/influenced in favour of its own members that pay said associations wages/profits, FFS lets get real peeps :O)
@Norman Andrews, your half right Norman but its a lot worse than you think, whether opted out or in, ALL of BT's traffic is redirected to the PHORM servers (webwise.net) and basically the site you requested is MIRRORED from PHORM'S proxy servers masquerading as the original site you requested to visit, see here for simple diagram :- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c4/Phorm_cookie_diagram.png grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :O)
apart from the privacy issue, just how much slower is all this $hite gonna make the web, jeeeeeeeeeeeeez, BT's slow enough allready, so wheres all this extra bandwidth coming from to drive this beast ?? yep you got it, its you the punter that pays in the end one way or another, heads they win, tails we lose, its as simple as that, also who's to say its targeted adds that were talking about and not just adds from PHORM et al's highest bidders, hmmmmmmmmmm, whos to know eh ??
see here for more on PHORM's previous errrrrrrrrrrrrrr, forms (pun intended) :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm#Company_history
quote about PHORM :-
"Company history
In its previous incarnation of 121media, the Company's products were described as spyware.[13] As 121Media it distributed a program called PeopleOnPage,[14] which was classified as spyware by F-Secure.[15] PeopleOnPage was an application built around their advertising engine called ContextPlus. ContextPlus was also distributed as a root kit called Apropos,[14][16] which used tricks to prevent the user from removing the application and sent information back to central servers regarding a user's browsing habits.[17]
In November 2005 the Center for Democracy and Technology in the US filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over distribution of what it considered spyware, including ContextPlus. They stated that they had investigated and uncovered deceptive and unfair behaviour. This complaint was filed in concert with the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Internet Center, a group that was filing a similar complaint against Integrated Search Technologies with Canadian authorities.[18]
In May 2006 ContextPlus shut down its operations and stated "[Contextplus are] no longer able to ensure the highest standards of quality and customer care". The shutdown came after several major lawsuits against adware vendors had been launched.[17] Phorm has countered this with an admission of a company history in adware and the closing down of a multi-million dollar revenue stream as people confused adware with spyware.[19]
Kent Ertugrul - "The problem for newspapers is that a story headlined 'Two Dead in Baghdad' isn't very product-friendly" said Kent Ertugrul, chief executive of Phorm, a behavioral targeting company working with British newspapers. "But if you know who is looking at the page, that's where the opportunity is."
bahhhhhhhhhh, money grabbing $histers grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!!!!
/rant over, im going outside now to have a good scream in the park :O)
mines the one with the valium in the pocket O_O