p2pnet news view Freedom | Advertising:- Deep Privacy Invasion company Phorm is now in deep trouble.

It almost got away with using the ga-ga UK government as a foil for its Deep Packet Inspection based data piracy operation.

But after complaints to the European Commission over how the behavioural advertising ’service’ was tested on the BT broadband network without the knowledge or permmission of users, the EC has started legal action against Britain.

The Open Rights Group wrote to Microsoft, Google/Youtube, Facebook, AOL/Bebo, Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay urging them to opt-out of Phorm asking them not to get involved with Phorm.

Following that, Amazon says it has no plans to allow the company to, “scan its web pages to produce targeted ads,” says the BBC.

Will it be the first of many?

The BBC has Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock saying his organisation expects more sites to follow suit and, “also ISPs to drop plans to snoop on web users.”

LiveJournal, mySociety and Netmums have also told Open Rights Group they’ll block Phorm’s technology, ads the story.

NoDPI

Things woud have been conisiderably easier for Phorm if Alex Hanff hadn’t been around.

Now, “We were very pleased to invite Jim Killock to take part in the House of Lords Round Table Event back on March 11th and after meeting Jim and having a long discussion over lunch and after the event, we decided on a number of collaborative strategies we could initiate,” he says on NoDPI, going on »»»

We know that Phorm have been active in Brussels and it is important that the Commission give equal attention to the public lobby on this issue.  Sending emails and letters is all well and good and has achieved a great deal, but face to face meetings generally achieve more (as we saw at the House of Lords event) and at such a critical time it is important we don’t “miss the boat” on this.

Now to the ever hovering problem of funding; obviously we will need to raise funds for this event as flights and hotels will need to be booked.  I have been very careful to date to only conduct funding drives for specific events as opposed to regular funding to help support our other initiatives and so far that has proved very successful and our targets have been met each time.  So once again, I would like to make people aware of the donation button on the right side of this page.  With almost 1 million page views a month at the moment it should be relatively easy to raise the funds without anyone needing to donate any substantial amounts, so if you have the means, please help us to continue this campaign by making a small donation.

I will provide a full list of costs once we have a date arranged (so I can accurately forecast travel and hotel costs) and keep the blog updated with a running total in the donation fund.

The news yesterday went beyond anything we had hoped to achieve and it is our members and other campaigners elsewhere who made that happen; I cannot stress enough how this campaign is a public campaign and that it is a remarkable example of the public engaging in these issues at a political level.

For many years I have told people that the only way to change the system is to engage with the system and have heard far too many people say that it won’t make any difference.  I am proud to say that this campaign is the perfect illustration of exactly what can happen when people do engage.  For 14 months this campaign has gone from strength to strength and the achievements have been incredible; I have every reason to believe that we can and will win this battle to protect our privacy – but more importantly it shows a paradigm shift on a larger scale of how the general public perceive their role with regards to taking responsibility for forcing change.  Every week we read news about the Government trying to take another  little piece of our liberty and democracy but every day I see no clearer example of the public growing democratically to challenge these dangers.

This is not just a fight for privacy, it is not just a fight against Phorm or other Deep Packet Inspection advertising models – this is a fight for our right to hold our government accountable for their actions and inactions and to protect the development of law and public policy from the illegitimate bias of the corporate lobby.

If the only arguments politicians hear are those from paid lobbyists with a corporate interest – it is a historical fact that they will inevitably create legislation and public policy which leans towards the corporate view, often to the detriment to public interest.  In order to keep the playing field level, we have to continue to engage in exactly the same way global corporations do.  Politicians have a duty and obligation to listen so we have to give them something to listen to.

Stay tuned.

started legal action – 121Media/Phorm and Wings over Moscow, April 15, 2009
BBC – Amazon blocks Phorm adverts scan, April 15, 2009
NoDPI -  NoDPI is going to Brussels, April 15, 2009