Phorm, privacy, RIPA and interception

[Ian Batten]

On 27 Feb 08, at 0938, Roland Perry wrote:

>
> However, anyone who thinks *I* should be able to give permission  
> for my *wife's* clickstream to be intercepted, is invited to come  
> and explain exactly why they think that's the case :)

Quite so: and an advertising company wouldn't pay much for the co- 
mingled clickstream from a house (ie tied to one IP number) because  
the targeting will be horrendously bad.

Anyone who doesn't believe me is invited to make my mistake and use  
Amazone to buy (a) books for their nine year old (b) books, CDs and  
DVDs for their eleven year old and (c) books their wife who goes to a  
reading group that largely reads the sort of books wives read at  
reading groups.

And then note that the previously very useful indeed  
`Recommendations' are now completely and utterly useless. Amazon now  
provide a ``don't consider these purchases for my recommendations''  
option: very useful too.

Another interesting issue is the claim that this clickstream  
processing can be turned off with a cookie: that implies HTTP is  
involved, in order to fetch the cookie to be presented to the ISP.   
That's not just passive monitoring.

ian