More Phorm Webwise Spin

Well I completely forgot that I had a message from Phorm/Webwise about one of my entries here on my blog to reply to. You can see their reply under the entry entitled Phorm’s PR team is Back.

As usual I shall reply to them in my usual fashion

Hi. Alex from Phorm here

Hello Alex, Fancy finding someone from Phorm on my little blog.

You are right about the need for transparency here (and your post shows how powerful the Web is for widening access to information). We have been open about our involvement in the adware business which we admit was a wrong turn. Interestingly F-Secure points out that ‘the motive of Apropos is not to use rootkits for hiding itself’ and makes clear that this class of software is used to ‘avoid detection’. Like it or not, Apropos was highly visible in showing adverts ‘ad nauseam’, as F-Secure describes it (http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00000727.html).

Phorm are as transparent as a bucket of tar, I wouldn’t say you’ve been open about your activity in the SPYWARE business, but then I don’t selectively quote articles as well as anyone involved with Phorm seem to be able to. Many thanks for your link to the f-secure site, but it seems you have missed a paragraph in your cut and paste antics. For the reader I’ll save them the trouble of going to the link and post it here.

Therefore, the motive of Apropos is not to use rootkits for hiding itself. The very advanced rootkit functionality in Apropos is designed to prevent uninstallation and removal.

Alex then tells me

For completeness, Apropos could be uninstalled by the user although it was designed so that competitors could not remove it. And like Sony, which found itself criticised for using rootkit technology to protect its copyrighted material, we offered a tool to uninstall the software (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=8200).

And again f-secure comes to inform everyone, with this recent article on Phorm.
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001420.html

I particularly like the following from that article

It has also come to our attention that Phorm was previously known as 121Media.

121Media was the company behind the brand PeopleOnPage. PeopleOnPage is the friendly wrapper around the advertisement engine ContextPlus. Another wrapper was called Apropos, which was one of the most widespread malicious rootkits of 2005. In 2006 the heat was too much and they shut it down. DNS registrars and website content supported that they were all in it together.

And finally Alex finishes with

We continue to learn from the past and have built the Webwise system with privacy in mind - it will store no personal data unlike the major search engines who keep your information from 13+ months before they even anonymise it. In the spirit of transparency, users will see in the banner ad space that Webwise is on. So if users don’t want it, they will be able to click on these ads and switch it off. (It’s worth noting that the very first thing a user will see when they go online after the system has been deployed is a full-page notice and at that point they can decide to opt out.

So the first thing they will see once the Phorm/Webwise Spyware has been enabled is a full page web notice that they can opt out? So if the person has their homepage set to say the BT or Virgin Media home pages, then by you putting your page up first shows the user that you are intercepting/tampering with their data stream by redirecting them. Will this wonderful OPT-IN page also tell them that it will still collect data on their online activity even if they opt out?

And what of BT’s recent revelation that anyone with BT who blocks any of the Phorm/Webwise domains in their hosts file won’t be able to use the internet at all?

Phorm/Webwise beaks not only UK laws, but also EU laws too. And now that the ICO has started opening cases concerning the illegal trials you’ve undertaken with BT, your share price plummeting and more people becoming aware of the scheme through the media. I think the days of your ISP based spyware system are numbered.