The Temple of the Mighty Bague

Well, according to El Reg, BT have been Baaaaaaad Monkeys and have finally owned up that they carried out secret tests of the Phorm system they’ve “not decided to use” well over a year ago. Without telling the people whose traffic they intercepted.

Something tells me they’re going to get a little bit sued.

Full muck here.

Well, at least BT are straight up about it. They replied saying “we don’t know anything yet, but when we do we’ll let you know.” Which is better than my mate RedSmartie got. He mailed Virgin pretty much the standard letter I put in my previous posting and in reply recieved a bunch of waffle about how bombarding him with unsolicited ads was “protecting him from ZOMG TEH PH1SH0rZ!!1!one!”

They also mentioned “ill-informed ’stories’” which are currently being circulated by people who don’t understand the systems.

People like RedSmartie. And me. Oh, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

If an ISP wants to make a shedload of cash by snooping at my browsing habits and sending ads targeted at a 37-year-old male to my 7-year-old daughter, then they should at least have the courtesy to say so, and not attempt to play on security fears by trying to pretend they’re protecting me from something.