Commentary
Amazon Joins Anti-Phorm Brigade
- by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, April 15, 2009
The move comes one day after the European Commission said it was commencing legal proceedings against the U.K. regarding Phorm, which so far has the blessing of British authorities.
Phorm serves ads to Web users based on information about their online activity gleaned from ISPs -- which riles privacy advocates for a few reasons. Broadband providers have access to all Web activity, including queries at search engines and visits to noncommercial sites; older behavioral ad companies only glean information from specific sites within a network.
Additionally, Phorm conducted secret tests of its platform in 2006 and 2007, which arguably violated Europe's sweeping privacy laws. Advocates have been urging the authorities to condemn the company for those tests.
Phorm says it doesn't store personal data or browsing histories and that it sought users' opt-in consent for its most recent test.
Apart from consumers' privacy concerns, Web companies like Amazon have also have reason to feel threatened by Phorm.
Currently, if someone visits Amazon and, say, browses the site for digital cameras, only two companies currently have access to that information: Amazon and the user's Internet service provider. The last thing Amazon should want is for, say, Canon to be able to reach that user independently. Ditto with Google, Yahoo or any other publisher.
For now, the U.K. broadband provider BT Group allows publishers as well as consumers to opt out of Phorm's platform. At this point, unless Phorm intends to offer publishers some sort of incentives, it's hard to see why they would allow the company to gather information about their visitors.
Wendy Davis is a Senior Writer at MediaPost. You can reach Wendy at [email protected]
Phorm is dangerous. It is an intrusion into every individuals private life. It is Big Brother. Worse it treats every individual with contempt by using your personal data to bombard you with vacuous banal advertising messages as if we do not have enough of this delusional nonsense as it is. I do not want to be bombarded by 50 car company ads just because I visited one car company website. And nor should you. Do not become a zombie in the appalling world Phorm and other such sites are trying to create. Well done Amazon. Well done European Union. Sue the b*****ds them completely out of existence.