Remember Phorm?
BBC News reports that Phorm is legit… sort of. The (rather significant) rider mentioned on the BBC is that
any future deployments of the system must be done with consent and make it easy for people to opt out.
Just for the record, I’ll be opting out. I’d rather it was an opt-in system, but you can’t have everything.
Further in the article, it says that any profiling
must be done “with the knowledge and agreement of the customer”. Critics say this agreement was notably absent in the first two trials conducted by BT.
Indeed. We’ve been treated to a masterclass by Phorm in how not to launch a product. All the negative press, particularly amongst the techie communities that non-techies will turn to for advice, means that there is not a lot of good will towards Phorm. Their poor communications and effectively unannounced trials mean that a lot of people will be opting out from the get-go.
Background to this can be found over at the Political Penguin.
xD.
