Phorm loses a Managing Director, but Internet Privacy Battle Continues

Online advertising company Phorm lost its managing director Nick Barnett today. It?s significant news for a company that once worked with BT to unknowingly spy on the ISP users in order to run a beta test of their software, aimed at providing more targeted web adverts.

The company has been the subject of a huge amount of controversy which we covered in this blog earlier this year, but since all major UK ISPs pulled out of deals with the company following huge amounts of negative publicity ? especially from BT customers who had no idea they were being used as test subjects for the technology ? the company has been on a downhill slide that their PR department won?t seem to admit.

However, Phorm?s downfall is only a part of the fight against companies trying to invade consumer?s privacy online. Communications regulator Ofcom has been involved in discussions with a company called Detica surrounding the possible use of its CView technology ? something that could be used in the future to find people involved in internet piracy by using a form of detection known as Deep Packet Inspection, or DPI.

Deep Packet Inspection is always a fairly intrusive process, and while it?s been suggested the technology will be used to assess piracy problems at network levels rather than aiming it at individual consumers, it brings up much of the same privacy problems and data collection issues that Phorm did ? something likely to get many online privacy groups up in arms

After Phorm there?s certainly a more muted response to the technology from the major ISPs, with providers like Virgin and BT staying well away from an upcoming beta trails which are due to be run through a yet unnamed ISP.

The only people heavily invested in the technology and how it can be applied are once again movie and music companies such as the BPI and PRS even though the technology claims it can?t be used to identify the piracy habits of an individual. It seems like the end of Phorm as a serious threat to our online privacy has only sparked more different technologies and companies to give it a go, instead.

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