I agree entirely, in fact BT Webwise, Phorm, NebuAd, and a few ISPs are all case studies in a paper that I'm in the process of writing. Reading Richard Clayton's stuff on Phorm, I'm amazed and apalled that the British government seems to be giving Phorm the green light.

The other good reason for encrypting and obfuscating your communications is the emerging threat of systems like Phorm / BT Webwise to monitor your communications for marketing.

Currently, as a web site operator or user of a web site, you cannot trust BT to respect the privacy/confidentiality of your communications (and the UK Government/regulators/police have done nothing to enforce communication privacy law).

BT have trialled this system twice already, profiling tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in 2006/7.

The visitors to this site, for example, could be profiled and targeted with 'relevant' advertising by BT.

Because its not encrypted BT consider that they have your consent to have your communication intercepted, your creative work copied and sold, and your visitors stripped.

The use of communication data for marketing is a gross privacy intrusion, its mass industrial espionage, and systematic copyright violation.