Not-phorm

[Sammy Lowrie]

The references to BT and CPW are on the Phorm site www.webwise.com. After a
brief exchange of emails with Neil Berkett in the weekend - he advised that
VM have made no decision to implement the software. It looks like, to me,
they want to see how much more messy this is going to get.

Also, I pushed NB for an announcement to the VM Customer base, or give a
reasonable indication of when an announcement would be made. (Note the
following is deciphered from the response - not Neil Berkett's wording).

In basic terms, VM are not going to make any announcement or decision until
the Tests have been carried out, and the integrity of the Software and the
idea are assured. Also he's indicated that the matter is too sensitive for
an announcement ATM - as a VM Customer I am annoyed at the lack of
information, but at the same time with the whole mess this is making I can
understand.

Yeah, the Petition is 23rd place. And www.badphorm.co.uk is getting hammered
with hits. Its only good, as personally I feel most people don't know what's
going on. And that is playing into the hands of Phorm. 

My take on one of the exchanges today:

Children and Phorm - I play Poker Online, and am seriously concerned that my
very young children would click on a Poker Ad when they log on. Its
completely irresponsible to accept that 11 Million users would be put in
this position. The ISPs are equally guilty of putting this upon my Children,
and if the Software is Implemented, I will seek Legal Action against my ISP
and Phorm for putting my kids in a situation they should not be in.



-----Original Message-----
From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
[mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of Ian Batten
Sent: 18 March 2008 20:51
To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
Subject: Re: Not-phorm

Some interesting stuff on the phorm website.  Firstly, the logos of  
BT, CPW and VM have been removed from the front page: it still in the  
text quotes them as partners (which covers a multitude of  
possibilities) but there's no co-branding.  That might just be to save  
a smidgeon of bandwidth, but I wonder...

Secondly, there's a raft of videos of the CEO `answering' questions.   
It's hard to tell if he's deliberately misunderstanding peoples'  
concerns or just isn't very imaginative, but it's presumably intended  
to look honest and direct.  Those of us over thirty will perhaps  
remember assorted Tories stood in school halls on the 1st of May 1997,  
not quite sure of what had happened to them: it's all a bit like  
that.   I suspect those somewhat older than me will start muttering  
about dogs called Checkers [1].  It's all pretty strained, anyway.

Over in the BT support forums/fora, the BT spokesman has taken his  
ball home and hasn't been heard from since Friday's announcement that  
all previous statements on the topic of the trial last summer were, to  
quote Ron Ziegler [2], inoperative.   People there are quite in quite  
a stew.

And the No 10 petition is getting towards 7000, too.

ian


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Ziegler