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By: MarkJ - 17 April, 2009 (1:33 PM) - Score: 1630 - Privacy
Wikipedia, which is one of the largest online websites in the world, has become the latest to officially opt-out of Phorm's WebWise behavioural advertising technology. Phorm works with UK ISPs to monitor what websites you visit for use in targeted advertising campaigns, though website owners can opt-out of having their sites included in its profiling.

After some internal discussion on whether opting out of the Phorm user-profiling system in the UK would legitimize it, we’re going ahead and requesting an opt-out for all the domains under the Wikimedia Foundation’s control:
Subject: Phorm opt-out for Wikipedia.org and related domains
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:28:11 -0700
From: Brion Vibber
To: website-exclusion@webwise.com
CC: private-l@lists.wikimedia.org

To whom it may concern --

The Wikimedia Foundation requests that our web sites including Wikipedia.org and all related domains be excluded from scanning by the Phorm / BT Webwise system, as we consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors' behavior by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/wikimedia-opting-out-of-phorm/

The news follows a similar move by Amazon, which opted-out of Phorm earlier this week.
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Comments: 4

asa logoCarrot63
Posted: 17 April, 2009 - 3:36 PM
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"After some internal discussion on whether opting out of the Phorm user-profiling system in the UK would legitimize it"

Clearly they reached the wrong conclusion. And all they have for their pains is the assurance of a bunch of spyware peddlers that they'll actually honour the opt out, since wikipedia will be unable to verify that there is no interception.

In any case, it wouldn't surprise me if phorm were already compiling a database or 'pre-profile' of well known sites or pages just in case the opt out becomes too popular, at the very least to get a flavour of the contents. Then they wouldn't be scanning, and they do after all seem keen on the letter of the law.

Assuming they can't do a network opt out on the fly, they'll be interfering with 3rd party sites cookies anyway, or the system wouldn't work.
asa logoPaul Barnes
Posted: 17 April, 2009 - 4:42 PM
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Well played Wikipedia. Phorm is an extreme danger to everyones privacy and must be stopped. The EU is now taking the UK to court over Phorm, so hopefully they will kick Phorm off completely.
asa logoAbsent
Posted: 17 April, 2009 - 6:31 PM
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Maybe the best way to kill the effectiveness of Phorm would be to rally every webmaster reachable, no matter how big or small, to request removal of their site from Phorm's system. Even though it make no difference to their stats, hundreds of thousands of opt-out request from little web sites would be a costly admin headache for them.
asa logoCarrot63
Posted: 17 April, 2009 - 7:10 PM
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Better every webmaster donate to a fund for one or two sites to take phorm to court for illegal interception in breach of RIPA.

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