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Phorm Over Function |
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< | [abstract goes here] |
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> | [Whether Industry Self Regulation, or Proposed Rules akin to the New York Bill are more appropriate] |
| | * DISCLAIMER * Please note, this is a work in progress, and not intended for review (just yet). I'm just experimenting with the editor, and using this to collect links/extracts which might be helpful. I'll remove this notice as soon as it is complete! |
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< | Theme: Whether Industry Self Regulation, or Proposed Rules akin to the New York Bill are more appropriate |
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> | Phorm, formerly 121Media, is a technology company based in Moscow which became the subject of much scrutiny upon announcing that it was in talks with three UK ISPs representing 70% of the country's broadband users, to deliver a "Behavioral Targeting"; advertising system to track surfer's habits using "Deep Packet Inspection"; It competes with NebuAd, Front Porch, Adzilla, and Project Rialto. [one line summary of my argument]. |
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< | Phorm, formerly 121Media, is a digital technology company which drew attention to itself when it announced it was is in talks with several major UK ISPs to use deep packet inspection to deliver a "Behavioral Targeting" advertising system which trackers surfers habits. It competes with apple and cat.
How do Phorm et. al Work? |
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> | How Do Phorm et. al Work?
Targeted advertising is nothing new. Offline advertisers have been focusing campaigns for decades, and their online progeny have long used persistent cookies to track repeat visitors to their sites, geodata from IP headers to approximate their location, and data from search histories, emails, and the content of requested pages to provide contextual adverts. |
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- Cookies, search data, geodata
- Deep packet inspection
- Be careful to distinguish between 'anonymous' tracking, and tying to personal data
- Distinguish behavioral from contextual, demographic, geographic,
- Difference between site-based, and network based behavioral tracking
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- Leaks UID’s to https sites
- Distinguishing between 'anonymous', personal, and sensitive data
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< | Proposed Solutions
- Industry self regulation
- Opt-in / Opt-out, and transparency
- Differences in approache between Phorm and its competititors
- New York Bill * Supported by microsoft, probably as a dig against Google (but potential acquisition of yahoo?)
- FTC Proposed Guidelines
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> | The Case For Behavioral Advertising
Proponents argue that these behavioral tracking systems provide several benefits to consumers. First, they point out that Phorm's servers provide some protection from fraud and "phishing"; by blocking access to a blacklist of sites known to be harmful. Second, targeted adverts are offered as the quid pro quo required to keep content free, when revenue from more traditional advertising is drying up. Third, it is suggested, users may prefer targeted to random adverts, an analogy being drawn to the referral systems employed by NetFlix and Amazon to recommend DVDs based on past viewing history, and complimentary or substitute products based on the shopping history of customers with similar tastes. Fourth, much of this information is already being retained by ISPs in compliance with legislation like the EU Data Retention Directive, or the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Similarly, browser add-ons such as the Yahoo! Toolbar have been aggregating and reporting on browsing history for some time. Finally, we are told that users can opt-out an anytime, by downloading a simple cookie onto their machines, and that at any rate, consumer outrage—as was recently expressed over the Facebook Beacon system—should mitigate against any egregious conduct. |
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> | The (Much) Stronger Case Against
The rhetorical equivalent of being told to “look at the monkey” before being jabbed with a needle, these ‘justifications’ are little more than irrelevant distractions. |
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< | The case for allowing it: |
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> | First, whether or not these platforms incorporate an anti-phishing layer is of no consequence. Not only is this already a standard feature of most modern browsers, Google’s search engine flags these sites with similar warnings. Given the availability of client-based solutions, is it by no means clear that this should be done at the server level. This feeds into a larger complaint about the complete lack of transparency with regard to which sites will appear on these list [controversy over blackballed domains], the lexicon of the so-called ‘sensitive terms’ which will be precluded from profiling, and the lack of details about the ‘anonymizing algorithm’ or ‘profile categories’ which will be used. |
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- More revenue in exchange for free online content
- BUT, 10% of Americans and 1/3 of Europe
- Adblock (and unblocking it)
- Contextual v Behavioural advertising systems
- Benefits from recommendation systems like Amazon and NetFlix?
- Consumer outrage curtails the worst abuses, e.g. Facebook Beacon
- Classic should the law follow or lead technology problem
- Haven't Google/Yahoo!, especially with their toolbars been doing this for a while?
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> | Secondly, most consumers are likely to be completely unaware that any of this is happening, even if they blithely agree once to a EULA. Ironically, the proposed opt-out method, accepting a cookie from faireagle.com, means that privacy savvy users who have disabled third party cookies (as everyone should), will not be opted-out, nor will any user who has blacklisted that domain using DNS, Adblock and so forth. |
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> | Third, the notion that the threat of consumer outrage is sufficient to prevent future abuse is absurd. Privacy statements change overnight, and failed companies have an unpleasant to tendency to offer their client records free of such encumbrances to the highest bidder. Aggregation of information on this scale just compounds the problem, there is no way notify consumers of an updated policy ex post, and in the absence of reliable data that advertisers will value this information that much more than less invasive contextual advetrs, there must be a huge temptation to expand the uses of this information. [search for cures and your premium goes up]. The ethical integrity of a firm known to rewrite its own wikipedia entry, and conduct secret trials of tens of thousands of unwitting customers, is zero. |
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> | Finally, we need to recognize the unique role of ISPs as the gatekeepers of the Internet, one which between application specific bandwidth throttling and a walled garden approach to mobile services, is increasingly questionable. A comparison with |
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< | The (stronger) case against
- Lack of awareness
- Future abuse (government collection - the 'search for cures and your premiums rise) argument
- Unique role of ISP's as gatekeepers (tie with arguments about bandwidth throttling?)
- Privacy statements change overnight; bust companies whose sole assets are customer data
- aggregation compounds these problems, no way to notify consumer ex post
- This data can't be that much more useful for just targeted ads, can it? Temptation to expand uses
- Self regulation doesn't reach wide enough - NAI covers less than 25% of advertisers
- See criticism from Cambridge Researcher
- Distinguishing between 'anonymous', personal, and sensitive data
- We're going to waive all manner of rights away in EULA legalese
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> | Proposed Solutions |
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< | - read cambridge research doc
- need to read the FIRP criticisms of Phorm |
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- Industry self regulation * Opt-in / Opt-out, and transparency * Differences in approach between Phorm and its competitors
- New York Bill * Supported by microsoft, probably as a dig against Google (but potential acquisition of yahoo?)
- FTC Proposed Guidelines
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> | Conclusions
[.] |
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< | References |
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> | Further Reading |
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< | FN 1 - The Register, The Phorm Files: All yer data pimping news in one place |
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> | The Register, The Phorm Files: All Yer Data Pimping News in One Place |
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< | FN 2 - Phorm: Official Site |
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> | Phorm: Official Site |
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< | FN 3 - Wikipedia, Diagram illustrating how Phorm Works |
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> | Wikipedia, Diagram illustrating how Phorm Works |
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< | FN 4 - New York Times, Louise Story, A Push to Limit the Tracking of Web Surfers’ Clicks, (Mar. 20, 2008) |
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> | New York Times, Louise Story, A Push to Limit the Tracking of Web Surfers’ Clicks, Mar. 20 2008 |
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< | FN 5 - Cornell Law School, Right To Personal Information |
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> | Cornell Law School, Right To Personal Information |
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< | FN 6 - New York Times, Louise Story, How Do They Track You? Let Us Count the Ways, (Mar. 9, 2008) |
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> | Louise Story, How Do They Track You? Let Us Count the Ways, New York Times, Mar. 9 2008 |
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< | FN 7 - The Guardian, Neil McIntosh, Letting it all hang out, (Mar. 18 2008) |
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> | Neil McIntosh, Letting it all hang out, The Guardian, Mar. 18 2008 |
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< | FN 8 - Third Party Internet Advertising Consumer's Bill of Rights Act of 2008 |
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> | Third Party Internet Advertising Consumer's Bill of Rights Act of 2008 |
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< | FN 9 - Blog, James Edwards, Unblocking Adblock (Feb. 5, 2008) |
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> | Blog, James Edwards, Unblocking Adblock, Feb. 5 2008 |
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< | FN 10 - Blog, Tim Tobin (Partner at Proskauer Rose), Privacy Law Blog, Consumer Advocates Target Online Behavioral Advertising: Broad Regulation Threatens to Impede Delivery of Relevant Advertising and Business Models for Free Online Content (Mar. 27, 2008) |
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> | Blog, Tim Tobin (Partner at Proskauer Rose), Privacy Law Blog, Consumer Advocates Target Online Behavioral Advertising: Broad Regulation Threatens to Impede Delivery of Relevant Advertising and Business Models for Free Online Content, Mar. 27 2008 |
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< | FN 11 - Text of the Dec 2007 FTC Statement |
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> | Text of the Dec 2007 FTC Statement |
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< | FN 12 - Law.com, David Bender (Senior Privacy Counsel and DLA Piper), Do Behavioral Ads Endanger Your Privacy?, (Apr. 2, 2008) |
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> | David Bender (Senior Privacy Counsel and DLA Piper), Do Behavioral Ads Endanger Your Privacy?, Law.com, Apr. 2 2008 |
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< | FN 13 - Conn. HB05765 (2008), which is somewhat narrower than the New York bill.
-- JulianM - 30 Apr 2008 |
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> | Conn. HB05765 (2008) (somewhat narrower than the New York bill) |
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< | CNET, Greg Sandoval, Failed dot-coms may be selling your private information (June 29, 2000) |
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> | Greg Sandoval, Failed Dot-Coms May be Selling Your Private Information, CNET, June 29 2000 |
| | US Companies which Meet EU Safe Harbor Provisions |
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< | Richard Clayton (Cambridge Computer Laboratory, The Phorm 'WebWise' System,(Apr. 23, 2008)) |
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> | Richard Clayton (Cambridge Computer Laboratory), The Phorm 'WebWise' System, Apr. 23 2008 |
| | Google Watch |
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< | Slate: Paul Boutin, You Are What You Search: AOL's data leak reveals the seven ways people search the Web (Aug. 11, 2006) |
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> | Paul Boutin, You Are What You Search: AOL's Data Leak Reveals the Seven Ways People Search the Web, Slate.com, Aug. 11 2006 |
| | Ernst & Young Privacy Audit of Phorm |
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> | Nicholas Bohm (FIPR), The Phorm 'Webwise' System - A Legal Analysis, Apr. 23 2008 |
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< | FIPR, Nicholas Bohm, The Phorm 'Webwise' System - A Legal Analysis, (Apr. 23 2008) |
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> | Foundation for Information Policy Research |
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< | http://www.fipr.org/ |
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> | Word Count: (ex. Abstract / Further Reading) |
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