In general the government e-petitions system doesn't actually work. The government will over-ride the petition even if there are hundreds of thousands of signatures (the vehicle tracking / road charging petition had 1.8 million signatures and yet the gov. still want to press ahead with this scheme).
But this is all about spreading the word and media pundits are more likely to talk up an issue if "the petition on the government website has had nnnnn signatures".
This particular petition is currently upto 678 after only 36 hours. This should start to accelerate as more message boards post the link and friends and family mail each other on the issue.
Let me give another nugget of information about the Phorm system. This is a quote from an ex-employee:
Quote:
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The [Phorm] platform clearly has some edge-of-network technologies involved. It would be entirely feasible for an ISP to allow customers to opt out - and subsequently throttle their service.
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What this means is - if punters opt-out of the system there is the facility to throttle their service. This is a threat. Comply or your internet connect could start to run slow.