EC starts legal action over Phorm

How does this affect Google AdSense?

[HuskyPup]

The European Commission has started legal action against Britain over the online advertising technology Phorm.

Busy day today, another from the BBC:

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

Surely this is similar to what Google is proposing to do and why we had to amend our privacy statements?

Please clarify if I am wrong.

[purplecape]

Perhaps that is why we had to amend our privacy statements--to guard against similar action.

[Lame_Wolf]

Amazon has said it will not allow online advertising system Phorm to scan its web pages to produce targeted ads.

[Lord Majestic]

The only way to prevent such scanning is to use SSL for all pages, maybe that's the way things will move to soon.

[Scurramunga]

Perhaps those of us opposed to the trawling should state it in our own Terms and Conditions Policy, whilst implicitly prohibiting it from occurring in connection with our visitors who have accessed information from our websites. In other words, we as web site owners automatically opt out

I am not an expert on law but I wonder if such disclaimers could see webmasters:

1. Protected from any legal twists which could see website owners legally exposed for not informing visitors.

2. Eligible to participate in any potential class action against the likes of Phorm, in the event we suffer a loss.

[edited by: Scurramunga at 10:24 pm (utc) on April 15, 2009]

[Scurramunga]

Purplecape,
just saw your reply now.
Ditto.

[swa66]

See also th ethread in foo on the phrom and the EC action against the UK:
[webmasterworld.com...]