Amazon and Wikipedia phactor Phorm out of the privacy equation

> ...having the servers they visit do the spying should be as well.

As I understand current US law, It's a privacy invasion, but not necessarily illegal. That would depend on whether the owner of the server gave them permission or not. Note that under current law as I understand it (IANAL), the owner has to GIVE permission, they can't assume they have it and only let the owner opt out. Otherwise it's "unauthorized use of a computer" and would be illegal.

I'd like to point out that the very act of creating a web page and making the links therein available to the public via a webserver is an explicit "welcome mat" granting anyone the right to visit and peruse those pages. There is no other obvious reason to put the links on a publicly available webserver, so there's a reasonable expectation of that being the case. That's why pretty much anyone who understands the technology considers the suits against "deep linking" frivolous. If you don't want someone visiting a page available on a publicly accessible server, you need to take steps to make those pages unavailable except to authorized users. Something the equivalent of locking the door or putting up a no trespassing sign in the nonvirtual world..

Phorm is (in theory at least) doing far more than visiting and perusing, and therefore greatly exceeding the welcome mat mentioned above. The fact that you may be willing to let someone enter your home doesn't mean you want them to eat dinner from your refrigerator, take a shower, and take a nap in your bed while they're there.