Phorm denies London changes mean giving up on America

Phorm is refuting suggestions that strategic differences have caused four senior board directors to quit and is also denying the departures show it is giving up on the America market.

Despite the departing American-based chairman and chief operating officer being replaced by non executives directors based in London, a spokesman for the company is adamant that it is not quitting America in favour of the UK, where BT is taking part in its only public trials.

The new board will feature non-executive posts for the former chancellor, Lord Lamont and Kip Meek, chairman of the Broadband Stakeholder Group. A spokesman for Phorm pointed out that these appointments underline that it makes sense for the board to be based in and around London, where CEO Kent Ertugrul is already based, rather than remain separated by an ocean.

“It’s just been too cumbersome to get the board together when they’ve been dotted around America as well as the UK,” he said.

“You have to remember we’re listed in London, on AIM, and so although we’re a Delaware registered company, we’re obviously very much based in London which is the centre of the most advanced internet advertising market in the world. So it’s a great market, we’re already here and listed, so it makes perfect sense to have the board here too. It’s going to make us able to move at a far quicker pace than in the past.”

 The company is also pointing out that whilst the outgoing board members had histories within large corporates the incoming non-executives are far more entrepreneurial and so will fit better within a small, young company. “We’ve realised that we’re not a Fortune 100 company, we need quick thinking entrepreneurial people on our board to move forward,” a spokesman pointed out.

 Phorm is denying that regulatory and consumer pressure in America will see it follow in the footsteps of other behavioural targeting companies, primiarly NebuAd, who have bowed to consumer and political pressure and backed away from tracking web users and serving adverts more relevant to their interests.

“We still have a team in America and it’s still a market we’re very interested in and we’re still pursuing,” the spokesman added.

However it seems increasingly likely that the company had made the decision that it is best to focus on launching the company globally through the UK where it has on-going trials with BT which started this autumn. Phorm claims to have another ISPs trialling the technology outside the UK but will not be drawn on its name or location.

The company’s technology anonymises a web user and tracks the type of pages (not the URLs) they visit so the system can build up a picture of their interests so more relevant adverts can be served for a higher rate per thousand ‘impressions’. The technology has been ruled legal by the Information Commissioner, so long as no personally identifiable information is collected and the system is operated strictly on an opt-in basis.

Tags: Kent Ertugrul, Kip Meek, Phorm