Posted: 02nd May, 2008 By: MarkJ
Virgin Media has faced staunch criticism over its vague stance on Phorm ever since the controversial advertising company first revealed that it had, "
signed agreements to deploy its technology with three major UK ISPs: British Telecom, Talk Talk and Virgin Media."
However, a new update to the operators
Webwise (Phorm) Information Page seeks to clarify their position once and for all, albeit still leaving the door open to Phorms adoption:
Virgin Media has signed a preliminary agreement with Phorm to understand in more detail how this technology works but we have not yet decided if it will be introduced. Webwise is a technically complex application which could be implemented in a number of different ways and it will be some months before we can confirm if the service will be made available to our customers and if so, how and when it would be deployed. Customer concerns around privacy and data protection are (and will remain) an important element of this preliminary evaluation and we will not roll out Webwise unless we are completely satisfied that in our view it complies with applicable data protection and privacy regulations.
It may be that, as part of the evaluation process, we want to test the technology among some of our customers but we are not currently doing so and we will not conduct any such tests without individual customers' prior consent. Moreover, should
Virgin Media eventually decide to roll out Webwise, customers will not be forced to use the system.
Meanwhile
The Register points out that this statement would appear to conflict with one made by Phorm's own CEO, Kent Ertugrul, on 10th April: "
We announced exclusive agreements with three major UK ISPs BT, Talk Talk and Virgin Media, which represent nearly 70 per cent of the UK internet market, to adopt our online advertising platform, the Open Internet Exchange (OIX), and a consumer internet feature, Webwise."