Frank_Rizzo - 12:12 pm on Apr 17, 2009 (gmt 0)

The curtains question is purely to judge your views on privacy. Either you value your privacy or you don't whether that privacy is online or offline.

---

Phorm is not a peeping tom leering at you from the bushes in your backyard.

DPI technology is more like a camera permanently perched on your shoulder. It records nearly all that you read and nearly all that you say. If it is installed in your ISP it is permanently installed on your shoulder and follows you wherever you go. You can not turn it off and you can not use any kind of ad blocking, cookie blocking, host files blocking, dns blocking to stop it.

Another analogy is customer visiting a shopping mall.

Search engines will use cookies and and basic tracking software to record:

CUSTOMERXYZ visited AMCO
CUSTOMERXYZ left AMCO visited House of Waffles
CUSTOMERXYZ went to information desk and asked for directions to Pizza Rut
CUSTOMERXYZ visited the restrooms

Some may be content with that as it only records where the customer went, and in some cases where they came from or what they searched for. The tracking is done by cookie so the customer can choose to block cookies.

It's like when the customer visits the mall a greeter pins a button on their lapel CUSTOMERXYZ. The customer can choose not to have the button (cookie) and thus they have better privacy.

DPI technology is so much intrusive than that. Rather than a greeter pin a button on the customers lapel the greeter follows that customer around the whole mall.

The greeter has a clipboard and records everything that customer sees, says, and listens.

"CUSTOMERXYZ went into Camerworld and asked about digital cameras. Sales assistant informed customer that the CN2000 was the best camera as it has built in flash, 2000Gigapixels....

Everything the customer read and asked will be copied and processed.

Now when that customer leaves that store he / she starts seeing adverts:

"Buy the CN2000 Camera at CamsRus. Just $99"

This is a two fold problem with DPI. The first is that it is very intrusive to the customer in that it records and processes just about everything the customer does, says, and hears.

The second is that Cameraworld should feel pretty much cheesed off that they gave the sales patter to the customer and yet the DPI software copied that information and is now directing the customer to Camerworlds main competitor!

What Camerworld has to do is to inform the DPI company that they must not allow their store to be profiled. The analogy being that any customer must 'leave their greeter at the door' and pick them up again when they leave the store.