Do Plusnet allow third parties to read postings on here for commercial gain?

[#1]

Any postings I make on here I intend to be read by human visitors to these forums. Also I make postings on here in the full knowledge that they may be read by visitors currently with other ISPs who may be considering moving to Plusnet.
What I am not happy about is the idea that my postings on here may be intercepted by a third party to build up a profile of a visitor if he looks at a page containing one of my posts and their ISP is using a system such as Phorm.
The solution is simple: Plusnet need to either put entries in http://community.plus.net/robots.txt which indicate to Phorm that no pages from these forums are to profiled (they have not done that), or they should notify Phorm that the sub-domain community.plus.net is to be excluded - and we have not been told if that has been done either.
Please could we have a clear statement from Plusnet on whether they allow Phorm to intercept postings on these forums if they are read by someone on an ISP using Phorm.
(For those that don't understand Phorm/Wewise this is a totally different issue to whether they intend to implement Phorm themselves. We already have been given clear statements about that - there are no current plans)

[#2]

Jelv, seriously?!
We have kept these forums public so everyone can read them.  It's often helpful for people who search on google and the advise that some people, including yourself, is invaluable.
There really is no conspiracy theory

[#3]

i think you read his post defrently to what i did.
jelv is not wanting to block viewing access to none members and in fact is trying to improve visters privacy whos isp's use phorm by blocking phorm using

Quote

The solution is simple: Plusnet need to either put entries in http://community.plus.net/robots.txt which indicate to Phorm that no pages from these forums are to profiled (they have not done that), or they should notify Phorm that the sub-domain community.plus.net is to be excluded - and we have not been told if that has been done either.

you could also put a banner on the comunity site saying phrom not welcome here ect and that might pull in a few more punters to plusnet 

[#4]

The problem is that Phorm don't have their own Robots.txt entry. They recognise the google one. So want to block phorm using robots.txt? Sorry you have to block google.
The real answer is for PN to request that all the plus.net domains are excluded from Phorms deep packet system.

[#5]

Um - the whole point of these boards is that they can be read by anybody who has teh interweb access.
I don't see why there is a difference if a machine reads our posts versus if a human reads them.
What have I missed?

[#6]

A tin foil hat?

[#7]

hum example phorm company logs that a user looked at adies post above with keywords tin foil hat.
now for the big consipary part
that info could be collected on users that think goverments spy on people and that database be sold to the goverment
yeah its silly example but i hope you get my drift
its easy to let are privacy drift away now but its going to be dam hard to reverse things in the future.
its legal for your next door neibour to point cameras on to your propety and watch you 24/7 and theres nothing you can do about was cctv suppose to used in this way or was it ment to be used in shops ect when first accpeted by the public and all the laws alowed to pass through praliment
p.s sanisubys own brand baco foil is my tin hat of choice

[#8]

Why do you mind who tracks the people who read what you write?
Does it make any difference to you that somebody may have agreed to allow a company to track what they read? (Thats what you seem to be arguing about?)

Quote from: ASBO

its legal for your next door neibour to point cameras on to your propety and watch you 24/7 and theres nothing you can do about was cctv suppose to used in this way or was it ment to be used in shops ect when first accpeted by the public and all the laws alowed to pass through praliment

This is not the case - they can only do so if it does not invade your privacy.
If it can only see things that any member of the public could reasonably see without using such a device, then yes, its legal. (I could mount a camera above my front door for example, pointing to the street, and since it can't see anything from there that you couldn't already see just by standing in the street, it would be perfectly legal.
I couldn't legally mount one on my back door pointing into my neighbours garden though, since the general public would not have access to such a view, and recording it could be an invasion of their privacy.
Shades of grey, and its reliant upon people using and enforcing things properly, but a sweeping statement such as yours is not helpful! [nor accurate]

[#9]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ksjd9/Whos_Watching_You_Episode_2/
catch up on this seris james_G it legal to for me to point cameras at my next door neibours propety
and back to the thread topic.
o.k if i moved to say virgin media or who ever takes the step to use phorm first i would want PN to block phorm profileing my vists to the forum.

[#10]

My apologies for falling into the trap - OK, its not illegal, but it could be unlawful.
It is potentially covered by the Human Rights Act though, and enforceable by the police subsequent to judgement.

[#11]

Quick thought - given that the anti phorm site (I can't remember the link) can block all BT IP addresses could Plusnet block all Virgin Media (or whoever uses Phorm first) from access to the site

[#12]

Yes, but why would they want to?
If you are not happy to have your words attributed to you, the message is simple, don't write them in a public forum.
If you are happy for anybody to read your words, why do you have a problem with people sharing their surfing habits with another party?
Would you be against me telling my wife that I read something you wrote? Or my employer? Or my friends? So why don't you want me to have a commercial agreement to allow a company to track what I read to better enable toem to target advertising at me?
I don't want my usage tracked particularly, but I am not so conceited as to think I have any right to prevent others sharing their habits if they so choose.

[#13]

Plusnet gain nothing from allowing Phorm to intercept pages from this website; they would loose nothing by banning Phorm from doing so.
I believe that their failure to respond to this topic indicates that fundamentally they have nothing against Phorm and that their statement that they have no plans to implement Phorm themselves is messing one word - 'yet'. I'm sure that as a part of the BT group they fully intend to implement it as soon as they think they can get away with it.

[#14]

Why would they ban it?
Its freedom of choice on the part of the person doing the browsing.
Blocking access to a number of potential customers, just on the basis that they share their browsing habits, is completely insane.
The board is open for everybody to access, and we all know it is.
How people choose to use, or access, the information we place here is surely up to them?
Welcome to teh interwebs: Headline - Other People Can See What You Write Here!

[#15]

So you would be perfectly happy for someone to gather all the technical advice you've made in postings on here, put them in a book and make a profit from selling it without paying you anything?