Sixteen questions for BT

1. Are you willing to make public the legal advice you received before proceeding with the Pagesense/ Webwise/ Phorm trials in 2006 and 2007? If not, are you willing to say which counsel provided it?

2. During the two trials of Pagesense/ Webwise/ Phorm you did not seek or obtain consent from the users affected nor from the owners of the websites they visited. On what basis do you think that the trials did not break the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000?

3. Are you willing to publish in detail the user research which you quote as giving approval to Webwise/ Phorm? if not, are you willing to disclose the specific questions users were asked?

4. On the main Webwise page on your website, you do not state explicitly that it works by inspecting every packet of data between the user and the Web, whether generated by searching, browsing, shopping, reading sensitive documents or indeed sending and receiving private emails using any services not recorded as such by Webwise/ Phorm. On what basis do you believe you will be obtaining informed consent from users?

5. For an interception to be legal, both communicating parties have to give their consent. How do you plan to obtain consent from the owners of the websites accessed by users who have opted in to Webwise?

6. What provision have you made for the legal costs of civil or criminal copyright proceedings which may arise from website owners (such as Amazon) who expressly forbid exploitation of their material for any commercial purpose?

7. In what ways are the anti-phishing features bundled with Webwise superior to those provided free with modern web browsers?

8. If users opt out of Webwise, will all their web traffic still be intercepted to determine that they have opted out?

9. Phorm was formerly known as an adware company, 121media. Its adware network PeopleOnPage was blacklisted as spyware by Symantec and F-Secure. Computer Associates categorised it as a Hijacker. What effect do you think partnering with Phorm has on your reputation?

10. What audit processes will BT be adopting to ensure that their Webwise/ Phorm servers comply with UK and EC legislation and are protected from criminal activity? Will BT have access to the source code running on them?

11. If the Webwise/ Phorm servers processing BT Retail users' traffic are compromised by criminals resulting in financial losses for BT's customers or for owners of the websites served to them, will BT provide full compensation?

12. What was the projected net profit from BT's Webwise implementation?

13. In what way has the requirement that users cannot be opted in to Webwise by default affected that projected profit?

14. What was the hardware, software and people cost of the Webwise trials, and how was this affected by the redesign once it was ruled that users cannot be opted in to Webwise by default?

15. What is the projected loss of income from users leaving BT as a result of a Webwise deployment?

16. What allowance have you made in the Webwise business plan for actions to thwart Phorm by its major internet competitors such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and eBay which could significantly reduce the material available for interception and profiling?