http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8925
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Privacy watchdog investigates Phorm
OUT-LAW News, 11/03/2008
Privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner is investigating advertising technology company Phorm over a deal it has cut with the UK's top internet service providers.
The deal allows ISPs a cut of ad revenue
in return for providing data on customers' web use and has attracted controversy since its announcement four weeks ago, with some users fearing for their privacy.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) requested details of the technology and the deal from Phorm and the ISPs involved, BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse.
"At our request, Phorm has provided written information to us about the way in which the company intends to meet privacy standards," said an ICO spokesperson. "We are currently reviewing this information. We are also in contact with the ISPs who are working with Phorm and we are discussing this issue with them."
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Phorm has said that the information about a user's activity is not connected to individual identities, which protects user privacy.
OUT-LAW.COM has sought answers to a series of questions from Phorm since the announcement of the deal weeks ago, but the company has not provided answers or made a representative available for interview.
Company chief executive Kent Ertegrul
told The Register last week, though, that he believes users should have no privacy concerns.
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The company commissioned Simon Davies from privacy pressure group Privacy International to analyse the technology. He said he was satisfied that what he saw was sound from a privacy point of view.
"It is true to say that from everything we saw,
and we think we saw everything, the system seems to not use personally-identifiable information," he told OUT-LAW.COM. "It works on the basis of a cookie
that seems to have no information on the machine it's embedded in.
I can't see where their system can draw any inferences or information about the computer or the user."
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