UK Police Stop Phorm Investigation, As They Don't See Any Criminal Behavior
from the civil,-however.., dept
While American competitor NebuAd may be on the verge of shutting down, it appears that Phorm, the controversial clickstream tracking, behavioral ad company that focused mainly on the UK market, may be dodging a series of bullets. First, the government said that clickstream tracking could be legal if the situation was clearly explained to customers and there was an obvious mechanism for opting out. Now, UK police are dropping their own investigation of earlier trials with BT, which many believed were illegal because they were done with no notice to consumers at all, and no way to opt-out. That would seem to go against the government's earlier statements, but the police are saying that there's no evidence that this is a criminal matter -- which would leave this open to civil lawsuits from individuals who were impacted by the trials.
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Filed Under: clickstream tracking, isps, legality, spyware, uk
Companies: phorm
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Pants
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Re: Pants
No it's not
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phucking phukers
Mass wire tapping without users knowledge OR consent.
U think u guys got it bad in the states ?
Welcome to the Red Glasnostic state of Not_so_Great Britain.
Side note - I hope this is far from over. It has to go civil now. I just hope there is someone who has the cash to pursue this.
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How the hell do you take them to court?
Except they don't know who they are, as they weren't consulted or informed which is the whole issue here
Sure, they might get absolutly bombarded with crap now that their information has been sold but they will never know which huge corporation with politicians in it's pockets did it
That's the whole point of the problem and why this should be prosecuted - to not do so sends a very clear message to companies that they can do what they want to the peons so long as they don't find out as individuals
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But..?
Would this be like the square mile, bound to have been corporately penetrated type city of london police?
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Phorm
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I don't know if it's fully within their remit but in principle I think OFCOM should be having a good look.
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froud with me
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