Phorm Roll Out The PR Machine Again, But Public Not Ready For Total Surveillance

Shares in Phorm, the internet tech company that teeters on the brink of legality, have risen after they announced yesterday that BT was moving ahead with implementing its controversial targeted advertising technology.

But according to NoDPI, an anti-Phorm site, the statement that “BT’s expectation is to move towards deployment” comes from Phorm alone, not Phorm and BT as reported in the FT and others. And it doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines and work out that BT haven’t actually said yes yet. Nice way to jumpstart those share prices though!

We’ve had a look at Phorm recently, as they’ve been trying to beef up their legitimacy by adding the likes of Norman Lamont and Ofcom founder Kip Meek to their board. Their website is nice and clean and curvy, like posh smoothie packaging, and it all seems above board. They say they don’t keep any records of who you are or where you surf, and that you can opt in or out of the program at any time.

But according to NoDPI, they don’t meet legal standards for opting in or opting out: “Phorm break the law by intercepting every unencrypted web communication by a customer of a participating ISP - AT THE ISP LEVEL.  There is no way to avoid this interception and the Opt-In requirements under the law are not being met.” Moreover, Phorm has never really recovered from the revelation and PR nightmare that BT customers were secretly monitored by the technology in early tests.

It’s uncertain whether other broadband providers are up for Phorm. Orange ruled themselves out last month, saying “Privacy is in our DNA, so we need to be honest and clear about what we are doing. We have decided not to be in Phorm because of that… The way it was proposed, the privacy issue was too strong”, while Tiscali and Sky have both also said no. Virgin Media are a bit more confusing – CEO Neil Berkett once said their advertising ”would not be with the Phorms of this world”, but now he’s saying: “There will be a point in time when we use the intelligence of our network for targeted advertising, will it be with Phorm, will it be with a modification of their product? I think it is a technique, but it is not something I want to rush into. We have got a fantastic brand and we want to take our customers with us”.

Even if BT is totally up for Phorming, it doesn’t look like the company’s share price is going to hit the £35 highs it once commanded. And from the comments of broadband providers, they don’t seem to think their customers are going to be convinced by Phorm’s cute explanation of its technology, with little Flash animations of hats and incinerators; the fact that BT didn’t reveal the figures of how many signed up during its latest test seems to suggest that their customers aren’t convinced either.

Being part of a media company affected by low ad revenues, part of me almost wants it to work and create higher ad premiums, but the total-privacy argument just doesn’t convince. And as astute commentor “oldghosts” mentioned in our last Phorm post, packet-based information delivery may not even have a future in a cloud-computing environment, so Phorm’s technology could become redundant. While Phorm gets exasperated at the refusal of people to sign up to something that would revolutionise revenue generation online, the public isn’t ready for total surveillance just yet, and that’s heartening.

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Sci-tech | December 16, 2008 4:23PM |