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All we want at Dixons is for our customers to love us - Senior man at DSG
EU slaps UK over Phorm fiasco
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION started legal action today against the UK over its decision to allow BT to snoop on its users' Internet browsing habits.
The UK government decided that Phorm's software, which serves adverstising based on previously visited Web sites, was legal. But the folks in grey suits from Brussels insisted that the way Phorm intercepted user data without consent, and failed to keep that data confidential, was illegal and that Britain should be forced to change its laws.
The Commission has also expressed concerns that the UK does not have an independent body to watch the watchers and protect us all from unscrupulous data mining. µ
L'Inqs
BBC
See also
Top webcos advised to avoid bad Phorm
BT Phorm trials begin again
Phorm conforms, says UK government
EU questions UK on ISP spyware
British Telecom spied on 36,000 of its Internet customers
BT uses customers as Phorm guineapigs
Web's creator slams targeted ads
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Wait to see the impact of ACTA. Phorm is nothing. Internet 2.0, that is what we need, not some slaps from the EC.
http://global.freifunk.net/?q=aggregator2/free_networks
I work in Social Media in the capital of Europe in Brussels. There is a trend in European culture and legal actions towards protection of private personal data, whereas in North American online culture and legal structure, the trend is more towards the protection of online copyright and content ownership and credit. I think that the UK, already an EU Member State with a history of several concerns regarding State sovereignty being superseded by EU institutions, may have finally forced a real show down with the European Court of Justice. The UK has been there before (over maintaining the UK measurements, of all things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Martyr), and struck a "let's do both UK and EU labeling". But this time, I think it will be much harder to strike a compromise. You can't maintain privacy while not maintaining it.