08004082680 silent calls


A standard telephone keypad.

Image via Wikipedia

Silent calls are an offence and upset to most people’s ears, including my own. They’re only punishable by fines in the UK if the number of silent calls made by a company reaches three per cent of its total call volume. 08004082680 is the latest number to be calling our home, for several days now and sometimes as often as every half hour, from 8am all the way through to mid- to late-evening.

It turns out there’s no point complaining to our phone service provider, BT, which is what the supposedly regulatory body OFCOM (in truth, as limp as a well-weathered lettuce) recommends you do in the first instance. Why? Because BT is one of a number of high-profile, big business clients of 2Touch, the offending company. It’s like finding out the Food Standards Agency to which you complain about a rancid restaurant meal is run by the chef who cooked up your dose of food poisoning.

Read the full article.

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

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How to stop Phorm and BT tracking your website


Don’t want BT scanning your website with BT Webwise, more infamously known to people as Phorm? It’s easy to make sure you don’t inadvertently assist in the development of this large-scale privacy-invading outrage. Just send an email to website-exclusion@webwise.com and tell them NO. You don’t need to be a BT customer, or resident in the UK.

Here’s what I sent:

I am currently a BT Broadband customer and as, when and if Phorm is introduced I will be writing to confirm my intention to switch to a non-Phorm-supporting ISP. In the meantime, I am concerned about the Phorm trial, which I have not been invited to join but were I to be invited, I would decline that invitation.

Please exclude my personal website http://spicycauldron.com from being scanned by the system. Thank you.

Read the full article.

Monday, October 20th, 2008

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