Posted: 26th Mar, 2008 By: MarkJ
The Guardian, a popular national newspaper, has opted-out of its partnership with Phorm, the controversial data pimping and advertising service. The papers advertising manager, Simon Kilby, issued the following response to one of its readers:
Source
The Register:
"
It is true that we have had conversations with them [Phorm] regarding their services but we have concluded at this time that we do not want to be part of the network. Our decision was in no small part down to the conversations we had internally about how this product sits with the values of our company.
I hope you appreciate that the quality of the Guardian's editorial is funded by our advertising sales operation and it is our duty to keep abreast of all developments in this sector. In this instance, however, I agree with you that this is not something that we should be partnering."
Phorm (
related news) works in conjunction with an ISP to anonymously track the websites you visit and thus develop better targeted advertising campaigns for viewing on websites such as The Guardians.
To date most of the concern has centred on its relationship with several major UK ISPs (BT,
Virgin Media and TalkTalk), although this event marks the first time that one of Phorm's key commercial advertising partners has pulled out.
However, Phorm claims that the Guardian has already reiterated "
its goal of participating" in the system, although this could be more of a face saving operation than fact, only time will tell.