As a Webmaster I am concerned about what my UK ISP (BTYahoo!/BT
Broadband) have told me about their plans to implement Webwise, a
technology patented by former spyware company 121Media, now known as
Phorm.Inc.
121 Media were formerly responsible for PeopleonPage, and for placing
difficult to remove rootkits on people's computers.

This technology uses Layer 7 interception of a users complete http
traffic to profile/mirror their browsing behaviour, and then use the
information to serve up targeted ads, based on an anonymised, cookie-
based UID placed on the users computer. It also involves the forging
of a cookie, purporting to come from the website visited, even if that
website has a privacy policy that says it does not set cookies.

It is similar but not identical to the US company NebuAd technology.

There has been relatively little debate about the isses this
technology raises for webmasters.

BT have stated that Webwise/Phorm will assume implied consent of
webmasters, to profile copyrighted web content, copy it, and exploit
it for commercial gain IF THE WEBMASTER CONSENTS TO A GOOGLE SPIDER
visiting their site.

They are equating their deep level Layer 7 intrusive interception
technology with that of the Google search engine. This may even lead
to confusion in people's minds between Webwise and Google, and they
may think that Google is in some way linked to Phorm/Webwise.
They are refusing to give webmasters a way of excluding Webwise
specifically using robots.txt - instead they are saying if we let
Google in, we let Webwise in. They have specifically repeatedly named
Google as the search engine robots.txt directive they will be looking
for in order to establish what they claim will be implied consent for
Webwise on the part of Webmasters.

Of course the major search engines allow and even assist webmasters to
exclude their robot from spidering sites by the use of specific user
agent strings. Webwise will neither set a user agent string, nor
permit itself to be specifically excluded via robots.txt.

Google need to be aware of this as it means that one possible step a
webmaster might take is to allow all other search engines to crawl
their site, but exclude Google. That way, they can exclude Webwise,
because they have excluded Google.

I would imagine Google would not be happy about this as it has the
potential to adversely impact their business model, by linking access
to Google robots with Layer 7 interception by Phorm/Webwise.

I am happy to provide further information to Google on this, including
details of communications received from my ISP,  if someone from
google contacts me by email. A good starting point for information is
here
http://www.inphormationdesk.org/

My email is robmjsubs53 HYPHEN google AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk
(remove the spaces, and turn the words in capitals back into what they
represent)