There has been some talk on 'tinternet recently about the big ISPs (BT, Virgin and Talktalk) signing up with a data trading company called Phorm. (Do a search on Google) It seems that they used to be called "121media" and were regarded as being, if not spyware pushers, then as something that was so close that it was impossible to explain the difference.
There is a Downing Street petition live regarding the subject, the important bit is pasted below -
We petition the Prime Minister to investigate the Phorm technology and if found to breach UK or European privacy laws then ban all ISP’s from adopting it’s use. Additionally the privacy laws should be reviewed to cover any future technologies such as Phorm
The UK’s three largest ISP’s, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk are all in talks with a view to introducing the Phorm technology. This would result in the browsing habits of the majority of the UK population being sold to a third party for advertising purposes. The opt out system for this technology is vague and unproven, even when opting out your every move on the Internet might be recorded. Surely this must be a breach of privacy laws, if not then the privacy laws need to be changed to cover such invasive technology.
If you want to add you penn'orth to it, go to -
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/
