UK ISP drops Phorm behavioral ad tech—for now

BT, the UK-based ISP that has been testing the behavioral advertising system Phorm, has announced that it no longer plans to deploy the technology after more than a year of controversy. The company did not offer many details as to why it decided to drop the project except to say that it wanted to rearrange resources "devoted to other opportunities."

The idea behind Phorm was hatched in early 2008 when the company said it had inked deals with a number of large ISPs in the UK to collect clickstream data from users and sell it to advertisers. This would enable advertisers to create highly-targeted ad campaigns based on users' own browsing history. One of the UK's largest ISPs, BT, was Phorm's headliner, conducting secret tests with the technology.

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