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Deutsch: Phorm zurück auf dem europäischen Parkett

After its implementation in UK failed, Phorm wants a fresh start by placing its foot in the European market through a partnership deal with Romtelecom in Romania.

With no public debate before the launch at the end of September, Romtelecom has presented a new service called MyClicknet, which basically implements the Phorm behavioural advertising solution with an opt-in approach.

In practice, that means that almost all traffic (browsing and searches) on port 80 from Internet users that opt-in for such a system will be scanned in order to create a profile that can be sold to interested advertising companies. Romtelecom insists that no personal data is recorded or kept and the user is identified in the ad network based on an anonymous string of characters.

Romtelecom also claims that the system will not scan any type of "delicate subjects", such as content related to smoking, pornography, alcohol, drugs, health issues or related to children under 14 years old. This would mean in practice that they will be actively using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) in order to see if the content fits in one accepted category or not.

Complaints against the system arose when Internet users saw their traffic redirecting to the Romtelecom opt-in page for its new service or, after joining the service, saw that traffic was being redirected to oix.net (the Phorm service).

Romtelecom's reply was that the service is 100% anonymous and free and you need to opt-in (by clicking "Continue" on their redirect page) to get access to the service. Also, they say the system was checked with the Romanian DPA (Data Protection Authority) and they have implemented all the suggestions of the DPA.

However, if the data protection law is fuzzy enough to be interpreted in such a way a similar service might be accepted by the DPA, the Romanian eprivacy law (no. 506/2004) is very clear regarding the obligation of confidentiality of the electronic communication providers. Article 4 states that the confidentiality of communications is guaranteed and any form of tapping or surveillance of the communication can be made only with the "prior written consent" of the users that are taking part in such communication. And if we think of the users of an Internet communication, there should be both the subscriber and the website.

After receiving several complaints, the Romanian DPA announced that it will launch an investigation to see how personal data are protected in the MyClicknet service, but only after 28 October 2011. In the meantime, all its public relations are being temporarily suspended, because they need to move to a new location.

Romanian re-Phorm-ation? (30.09.2011)
http://symbioticweb.blogspot.com/2011/09/romanian-re-phorm-ation.html

Romtelecom and their illeagal practices - Myclicknet traffic being intercepeted and analsed (only in Romanian, 6.10.2011)
http://forum.softpedia.com/index.php?showtopic=810348&st=0

Clicknet from Romtelecom - adverstising, redirecting, spam (only in Romanian, 4.10.2011)
http://m1ha1.blogspot.com/2011/10/clicknet-de-la-romtelecom-reclame.ht...

MyClicknet - the wiretapping service of Romtelecom (only in Romanian, 17.10.2011)
http://legi-internet.ro/blogs/index.php/2011/10/17/myclicknet-serviciu...

EDRi-gram: Phorm given up by UK ISPs (15.07.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.14/phorm-out-uk