"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
Thought Police - 1984, George Orwell

Monthly Archives: July 2009

BT sees ad sense and abandons Phorm

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Posted by paul on July 6, 2009 – 10:52 pm
Filed under internet tracking, isp tracking, phorm, privacy
Tagged as , , , ,

BT logoThe Register reports today that BT has abandoned plans to rollout its controversial Phorm web advert targeting technology.

BT was planning to go into partnership with web tracking technology company Phorm to deliver targeted ads at its customers.  The technology is suspect because Phorm would track all of your activity on the web to determine which ads to display to you on its partner sites.  Up to now ISPs have been relatively benign in analysing their customer’s surfing activity.

Privacy campaigners have vigorously questioned how user’s data and privacy would be protected.  The debate also spawned a petition on the Prime Minister’s No 10 Petitions website.

It is understood that Virgin Media and TalkTalk both still have the option to deploy the Phorm technology.

Will BT’s decision affect them?