By its own figures, released today, Phorm would appear to have a year left to either convince a major ISP to roll out its controversial personalised advertising service or re-invent itself as a content recommendation service for publishers.
Figures for the first half of 2009 show the company lost $15m and now has just over $30m [...]

The weekly Samknows.com news round-up continues, making sure nothing slips you by in your travels through cyberspace. This time we’re looking at alchemy, Big Brother and a Quantum of Torrents.

Behavioural targeting may have been given a rough ride by criticisms levelled at the ill-fated Phorm platform but the technology actually already accounts for around 10% to 15% of the country’s £637m online display market.
Not only is that market share set to increase to around 20% by the end of the year, the practice is [...]

BT today revealed it is not going to roll out Phorm, prompting the interest based advertising company to counter the assumption that this spells the end of its involvement in the UK market.
Certainly City investors would appear to think its days are numbered in London. By lunch time today, following BT’s decision, Phorm shares had [...]

The countdown for Phorm could well and truly be starting, revealing by the end of the year if it really is on track to live up to its hype and serve £239m worth of adverts within two years.

At around the same time as Sir Alan tells one would-be Apprentice ‘you’re fired’ tonight, Phorm will be launching what it claims has always been the ‘missing piece’ in its ‘rounded offering’.
However, one can only imagine what the business guru would have to say to Phorm if he were there in person. With six months [...]

The Home Office has been accused of “colluding” with behaviour advertising firm Phorm after correspondence between the two was published. The Government department has previously denied giving the company “any advice directly relating to possible criminal liability for the operation of their advertising platform in the UK.” Now it might have to change its [...]

After news yesterday that Phorm could be getting the U.K. Government in trouble with the European courts, Amazon UK has announced it’s not going to let the behaviour-advertising system scan its web pages. The controversial technology  – which is marketed under the name Webwise – works by scanning for keywords in the pages an Internet [...]

The European Commission has said it is going to take the UK to court over its failure to enforce european privacy and data protection laws — and it’s all because of Phorm. Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has for the past few months been conversing with the Information Commissioner’s Office about the online advertiser’s controversial methods [...]

The European Commission has today joined the debate between Internet users, ISPs and online advertising companies. In a blunt message to the Internet industry Meglena Kuneva, the Consumer Affairs Commissioner, warned ISPs, major websites and advertising firms that they are violating “basic consumer rights in terms of transparency, control and risk.” The European Commission has [...]

Controversial targeted advertising company Phorm has announced a deal with Korean Internet service provider KT. This will see the company’s behavioural targeting advertising system replicated in Korea after successful trials in the UK. However, there are fears that the Phorm system infringes privacy laws and it has attracted a number of legal challenges.
In simple terms [...]

BT’s share price fell below £1 yesterday, a 25 year low, on the announcement of the 3rd Quarter financial results but there was some good news around in the broadband area. While the pension fund tanked from a £2bn surplus to a £2bn deficit and BT Global Services lost £0.5bn in a quarter, BT Retail’s broadband revenue [...]

The boardroom comings and goings at Phorm continue as the UK Chief Executive, Hugo Drayton, left today ‘by mutual consent’.
A new role of UK managing director has been handed to Nick Barnett, who was Phorm’s commercial director. At the same time former Turner Broadcast Systems (Europe) president, Nan Richards, joins at Deputy Chief Executive Officer [...]

BT’s trial of the controversial targeted advertising platform, Phorm, has ended with both parties reporting success and a commitment to ‘move towards deployment’.
The trial began two and a half months ago to establish if the technology could be used on real life which, Phorm claims, it has shown it can.
“The trial achieved its primary objective [...]

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 [...]

Although the customer tracking advertising platform Phorm received a blow this week when it was publicly snubbed by Orange, it can take solace that Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse have assures Sam Knows they are keen to carry on evaluating the technology.
The advertising platform is no stranger to controversy. BT began a trial at the [...]

After months of hype, public demonstrations, threatened legal action, a government review and recurring BT promises of a service “in the next few weeks”; Phorm finally launches on BT today under the Webwise brand name.
The controversial technology tracks web surfing histories for ISP customers (who have opted-in) and so can serve more relevant advertising which [...]

The British government has confirmed to the European Commission that the controversial ad-serving business, Phorm, is legal. In a move that will come as little surprise considering the service was given the go-ahead by the Information Commissioner this Spring, the government outlined that, so long as it remained an opt-in service, it would be legal.
The [...]

NebuAd, one of two arch exponents of tracking user behaviour – via their ISP – to deliver more targeted adverts, has suffered a major blow with the departure of its CEO, Bob Dykes.
Using technology similar to Phorm, which is due to be trialled with BT “over the coming weeks”, NebuAd tracks user viewing habits so [...]

BT is still due to press ahead with its ‘technical trial’ of Phorm, despite a letter from the European Commission to the government asking for reassurance, before the end of the month, that the system does not contravene EU data laws.
Despite the caution in Brussels, the broadband provider will “soon” be inviting 10,000 of its [...]