I'd like to know what Phorm are proposing to do for the majority of sites on the web which already have Terms & Conditions that already explicitly deny permission to mine/gather/use their data in any way.
Are they going to blacklist all sites that have T&C denying this type of use? In which case, they won't have many sites that they can use.
Here's a few examples from some popular websites (relevant parts in bold!):
Amazon.co.uk
...This licence does not include any resale or commercial use of this website or its contents; any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices;
any derivative use of this website or its contents; any downloading or copying of account information for the benefit of another merchant;
or any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools.
This website or any portion of this website may not be reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold, resold, visited, or otherwise exploited
for any commercial purpose without our express written consent.
Facebook
...any other use of the Site Content is strictly prohibited. Such license is subject to these Terms of Use and
does not include use of any data mining, robots or similar data gathering or extraction methods. Any use of the Site or the Site Content other than as specifically authorized herein, without the prior written permission of Company, is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein. Such unauthorized use may also violate applicable laws including copyright and trademark laws and applicable communications regulations and statutes.
The BBC
...You may not copy, reproduce, republish, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use bbc.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any bbc.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use.
Have a quick look at the T&C for just about any popular site and chances are that they'll already have paragraphs similar to the above.
If these sites make their money from running their own advertising scheme, subscription fees etc. do you think they'd be too happy that Phorm are mining the data from every page of theirs that we visit so they can make a profit? I wouldn't be.