former monopolies

I am getting annoying phone calls from British Gas again, from this dreaded number: 08450700827. It turns out that anyone who dares to move to another supplier from British Gas will be harassed even more, with silent calls as punishment for desertion. So never ever get involved with British Gas in the first place, or you might regret it for years to come. Their service is crap anyway.

Then there is:

UK government responds on Phorm (BBC News, Tuesday, 16 September 2008)

"After conducting its enquiries with Phorm the UK authorities consider that Phorm's products are capable of being operated in a lawful, appropriate and transparent fashion," said a Berr statement.

The scumbags at BT who concocted the Phorm trials, thereby violating the privacy of about 18,000 customers, should be in jail. But the government thinks everything is hunky-dory. What's wrong with spying on people? We do it all the time ourselves!

If you can't leave this cursed country, then at least stay away from BT as far as you can. Also avoid Virgin Media and TalkTalk. You want an ISP that has the interests of its customers at heart rather than any shady deals with advertisers. See also:

Phorm: Our business is fine, honest (The Register, 4th September 2008)

Update (2008-09-22):

Since last time, I've received several more calls from British Gas, some of which were silent. I'm trying to find the magical formula to keep them at bay. So far I've tried "Thank you very much but please do not call me anymore", "sod off", "drop dead", and "drop dead after suffering from a horrible disease". No success so far.