For those of you who haven’t been following the story, BT broadband in the Uk, amongst others (Virgin Media / Talk Talk / Carphone Warehouse) sometime in 2006 secretly partnered with an advertising network known as Phorm allowing broadband users’ browsing habits to be exposed to targetted advertising via the web.
The Register has been following intently and as a customer of BT, i’m a little concerned. Way back in May they decided to dry run the advertising system on a small segment of their customers, without letting them know.
The mainstream media clearly feels they are on the edge of uncovering more of this, as the bbc reports more on the story, with a leading researcher calling for prosecution and Channel 4 also jumping in. This is a serious concern to everyday web users, and something I’ll be keeping an eye out for. If they do decide to roll it out, I’ll be jumping ship. If any of you guys know if this is actually legal, do drop me a comment.
linky
posted:June 5, 2008 10:11 pm
Right in the video it says they think it’s against the British law about interception when the user doesn’t know anything about it going on. Wow. I can’t believe they did that to their customers.
Devon Young