August 28, 2008

Rather than assuming that it's a case of a few people having too much time on their hands, why not ask them why they have gone to such lengths? Engage them in conversation and ask what they find so objectionable.

That is something that phorm and their ISP partners have failed to do properly, the sites you listed, and the artwork etc available on them is the reaction to them failing in that manner.

Instead of too much time on their hands, you may well find it's just the fact that people don't want to be profiled, the fact they like having privacy of communications and a general dislike of the methods being used, not to mention the fact that phorm and the ISP partners have just assumed that website owners won't care that they are having their sites copyright abused.

phorm and their ISP partners have tried saying that it's no worse than google indexing your site, but google attracts customers to your site; phorm takes your visitors away and directs them to it's partner (your competitor) sites.

So in effect, phorm means that individuals lose their privacy of communications and websites have their copyright abused and used to promote their competitors (unless of course you subscribe to their service to push ads at people). Is there any big wonder that there has been a backlash?

Sounds to me that too many marketeers don't care about people and their rights to be honest.

One day, a digital marketeer will get out of bed, and wonder where all his customers went.

All the money and effort he spent developing his web site didn't seem to pay off.

Strangely, every time a customer visited his web site looking for marketing services, the guy down the road (who's web site was dreadful in comparison) would win over those customers with an advert for precisely the same services for less.

Every time the markeeter sent a proposal by email, the guy down the road would popup from nowhere, and win the work for a few quid less.

Whenever a prospect phoned with a pricing query, the guy down the road would phone them a few minutes later offering the same service for less.

How did he know?

And that's probably the point at which the marketing industry will finally realise what they've destroyed.

And also the reason why marketing people must never be trusted to design data communication networks.

Jack... I think you missed something.

Phorm IS 121Media. Perhaps you ought to look into what they did before they "Changed their name"... you might just discover why 19,800 British people have signed a petition on the UK Prime Minister website against what Phorm is attempting to do (here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ispphorm/ )

When the 4th largest petition on any issue is against this company and their aims you ought to consider what you say, before you say it. Sorry, but you are appearing to be ignorant when I am sure that is not your intention.

Phorm must be stopped. Because it is, after all, 121Media.

Take a look, you'll see why any ISP doing a deal with Phorm is not a good idea. You'll see why BT and Webwise has been so controversial...

You'll see why Phorm's PR company tried to remove true facts from Wikipedia. You'll see why BT deleted and BANNED all discussion of Phorm Webwise from their customer forums. And you'll see why it is completely wrong.

For info, I was watching this before any NoDPI website had been created, before any dephormation site existed, before any small public protests, before any mass thread discussions on well respected forums like CableForum in the UK and before anyone was accused by Phorm PR machines or Phorm Execs of being tin foil hat wearers.

One of the biggest issues Phorm has is that the opposition to their plan is not from isolated groups of people with time on their hands to dedicate to this issue. The opposition is the ISP'S customers in general, and some of us only have time to comment occasionally against this issue when we see blatantly unrepresentative views.

All the best for 2009, to you and all readers.

Paul

that last comment was awful...come on man!