News articles based on a survey indicating public opposition to Phorm’s web snooping and advertising system have been withdrawn after the firm made legal threats to their publishers.

The independent consumer watchdog Which? sent a press release to newspapers earlier this week entitled “Internet users say: Don’t sell my surfing habits”. It detailed survey findings that UK internet users are opposed to plans by BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media to monitor and profile their browsing in collaboration with Phorm.

The findings contradicted market research repeatedly cited, but not published, by Phorm that the majority of people want the more “relevant” web experience it claims its “Webwise”-branded technology will provide.

…

The Which? survey was covered yesterday by the Press Association, Channel 4 News, The Telegraph, and The Daily Mail. The press release, however, was swiftly followed by this statement:

Urgent withdrawal of press release from Which? – Internet users say: don’t sell my surfing habits

Which? has received further information and representations from Phorm about the proposed Webwise service, and it has agreed to withdraw the above press release, issued under embargo on 24 February 2008, while we consider them. Some of the information in the press release and related article is said to be inaccurate and as a consequence may be defamatory. You are strongly urged not to write an article based on the press release or the related article ‘Online privacy matters’ in Which? magazine.

The Press Association, Channel 4 News and Telegraph stories have all been removed. Source: The Register.

So if you don’t like the news litigate.

Claude at Hagley Road to Ladywood points out the lies told Tony Blair and Jack Straw over their denial of extraordinary rendition involving the UK – which has been shown up as a pack of lies by Defence Secretary John Hutton’s admissions. Claude ends his post with:

If you still think Labour are worth your vote, then you deserve no better than this type of government.

The trouble is who else is there to vote for? Anybody who’s thinking of taking a punt on Cameron’s Tories is either wealthy, insane or too young to remember the last time they were in power; the Tories invented neo-liberalistic government.

Any suggestions?

New York Post Cartoon portraying President Obama as Chimpanzee

The New Your Post had been obsessed with the shooting of a pet chimpanzee that had viciously attacked the owners friend, how that ends up in this cartoon though is shocking – portraying Obama as a chimpanzee is racist – but you didn’t need me to tell you that.

Source: The Guardian.

I have a hatred of the Lib Dems born of years of campaigning against them – I have little love of the Tories either but at least you know where you stand with them. So the Lid Dems Freedom Bill leaves me in a quandary – should I hold my nose and support it or do I put it down as a Lib Dem PR exercise and move on? Well here’s their proposed bill:

• Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.

• Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.

• Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.

• Abolish the flawed control orders regime.

• Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.

• Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.

• Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.

• Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the information commissioner and reducing exemptions.

• Stop criminalising trespass.

• Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.

• Prevent allegations of “bad character” from being used in court.

• Restore the right to silence when accused in court.

• Prevent bailiffs from using force.

• Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.

• Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.

• Remove innocent people from the DNA database.

• Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.

• Scrap the ministerial veto that allowed the government to block the release of cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.

• Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.

• Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras. Source: The Guardian.

See nothing much to argue with – still the Lib Dems can be comfortable in the fact that they’ll never be in a position to implement it – still I’ve held my nose and signed the petition.

It’s sort of hard to believe but environmental campaigners in America say.

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council. Source: The Guardian.

Now is the Natural Resources Defence Council receiving funding from the Motor manufacturers? You have to wonder. Still in reality, we still need to cut down on our car usage regardless of the type of toilet paper we use.

I shouldn’t really copy this – however I couldn’t resist – Scott Adams is spot on.

Dilbert cartoon for 26th February 2009

Steve Doughty and James Slack are nothing but racist scum in The Daily Mail they write:

However although the figures from the Government’s Office for National Statistics show an increase in numbers of foreign born people they still fail to record the true impact of immigration because they record their children as British rather than second or third generation immigrants. Source: Daily Mail.

Oh I’m trying so hard not to swear.

Hat Tip: Liberal Conspiracy.

If like me you’re a Virgin customer then you’ll be interested in this

This week the company took the unprecedented move of upgrading all its base 2Mbit cable broadband customers to a 10Mbit connection for free. The migration will take place from May and represents the largest scale speed upgrade ever to take place in the UK. Source: Trusted Reviews.

Although to be honest I was paying for the 10Mbit connection, however sometime ago I downgraded to the 2Mbit service to save money – we never noticed the difference.

Poster from This is Not an Invitation to Rape Me Campaign

London Student carried out a survey of over 1,000 students at 119 Higher Education institutions the results are truly depressing.

Participants were given six scenarios and asked whether a woman would be totally responsible, partially responsible or not at all responsible for being raped in each.

If a woman was raped when drunk, 31 per cent of students think she’d be partly responsible and a further three per cent that she’d be totally responsible.

Flirting was seen as making a woman partially responsible by twenty-seven per cent of students, with two per cent branding her totally responsible in that situation.

A whopping 44 per cent of students would say the woman was responsible if she’d failed to say ‘no’ clearly to the man, and another four per cent that she was totally responsible.

And if she is alone and walking in a dangerous or deserted area, five per cent of students say she’d be totally responsible for being raped and 26 per cent would hold her partially responsible.

The number of students blaming a woman for being raped were lower given the scenarios that she was wearing sexy or revealing clothes or that she’d had many sexual partners, with 17 per cent saying she’d be partially responsible and two totally responsible in the first instance, and 11 and two per cent in the second.

Male students were on average more likely to consider a woman in some way responsible for being raped than their female colleagues, with the most notable difference of opinion being if a woman was wearing ‘sexy or revealing clothes’. Twenty-six per cent of male students said she’d be totally or partially responsible for being raped in that instance, compared to 14 per cent of female students. Source: London Student.

Laura Woodhouse at The F-Word sums up succinctly

So not only are young people continuing to perpetuate the same old myths about rape, female “responsibility” and men’s inability to control their dicks, but young women continue to internalise the generally misplaced fear of being raped by a stranger when walking alone or in certain parts of town, while some male students appear to feel a need to justify male sexual violence against women, or at least to defend their apparent ‘right’ to access women’s bodies. Source: The F-Word.

You’d hope that attitudes like these would have vanished amongst the younger generation – particularly benefiting from a university education.

Hat Tip: Stroppy Blog.

Flying from Sam Fuller on Vimeo.

Sam Fuller takes one paper airplane and throws it from the 31st floor of A New York building and films it – the resulting clip is strangely watchable.

Hat Tip: Very Short List.