Prominent anti-Phorm campaigner Alexander Hanff (NoDPI) is preparing to launch a private prosecution against the controversial advertising system, provided the evidence can pass two key tests to proceed. Yesterdays NoDPI update contained the following statement:


Hanff must now try to satisfy the Crown Prosecutors with "enough evidence to provide a ‘realistic prospect of conviction’". The final stage would then determine whether it is in the public interest to prosecute and we suspect that few would argue against it.

The move follows an unusual decision by the City of London Police (CoLP) not to investigate BT's secret 2006/2007 trials of the controversial advertising system, which works with ISPs to monitor what websites you visit for use in targeted advertising.

The CoLP bizarrely stated that such an investigation would have cost too much money, be too complex and those taking part in the trials were curiously deemed to have given their implied consent. Naturally many were less than pleased with that outcome.