Hi all
Hope you all had a good Easter? With reference to the above discussion, the Register article in the Guardian neatly highlights the two central issues here: protecting online privacy and needing ad funding to pay for Internet services. Of course people are concerned about the trade off they think they have to make between getting a personalised service on the one hand and giving up personal data on the other - we agree that they shouldn't have to make that pay off. So are you happy to be served targeted ads by companies that use your personal data and store it for more than 12 months before it is even anonymised? Surely it is better to have a system that stores absolutely no personal information, no IP addresses and no browsing histories - like us or not, that's a better privacy environment than you currently get.
Online ad targeting is not going away; something the Guardian confirms in its statement. The reason that we've had such an enthusiastic response from the companies that we meet is that the Phorm system can earn ISPs and publishers - big and small - more money to plough back into the services you receive today - most of them for free. If not ad funding, then what other way is the Internet going to be paid for? Most Internet publishers have abandoned subscriptions because not enough people are actually prepared to pay when it comes down to it.
As always, if you have any queries or want any more information, visit
www.webwise.com or
www.phorm.com