Online Ad System Phorm Problematic
April 16, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
The British controversy over the online ad system Phorm continues, with a critic saying it breaches human rights and makes the Net less secure.
Since it signed up three British ISPs – BT, Virgin, and Carphone Warehouse – to a trial of its online ad system, Phorm has been coming under fire.
The idea itself is very clever, as it matches a user’s surfing habits with ad channels in order to produce personally targeted ads, using keywords in the sites visited.
However, although Phorm has been praised by some for its data protection, it was rapped at a meeting for its security problems. According to the BBC, at a meeting, Dr Richard Clayton, a Cambridge University professor and treasurer of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, explained that when a user visits a page, in some instances a request will bounced between Phorm and the page three times before completion, which left it open to hacking. He’d been invited by the company to look at Phorm’s architecture.
"I don't think it improves the stability of the internet," he said.
Phorm’s chief executive, Kent Ertegrul, explained this happened in under 1% of cases, and didn’t affect the user experience. He also said that after taking legal advice, he was satisfied that Phorm didn’t break any UK privacy laws, and actually had the power to transform the Net.
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