EU questions UK government on Phorm

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European Telecoms and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding has sent a letter to the British government asking it to clarify whether, Phorm is breaching European data privacy laws.

The office of the Commissioner for Information Society and Media confirmed it had sent the letter to Downing Street in mid-July about the online ad system that profiles web user’s interests so companies can create better tailored advertising they are more likely to click on.

But details of the letter’s contents are not being public, except for the fact that the government has until the end of August to respond.

The Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform would only confirm it had been in ‘dialogue’ with Reding’s office and that it was working on a response.

Web monitoring firm Phorm launched its Webwise system in March this year to much criticism and controversy.

Media companies, including the Financial Times, MySpace, Universal McCann and The Guardian were linked to potential deals.

But it was Phorm’s association with various internet service providers (ISPs), whereby it tracked customer’s web browsing habits in exchange for advertising revenue sharing deals, that sparked concern over its use.

BT is set to launch wider trials of the tool, following the exposure of secret trials without customer consent earlier this year.

This led the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to investigate the Phorm system and contact the ISPs involved.

But in May the ICO ruled it would take no action against Phorm or BT.

Phorm has told IT PRO it has been actively involved in dialogue with the ICO to allay privacy fears, and that the system does offer web users the ability to ‘opt out’ of any monitoring.

It claims its underlying Open internet Exchange (OIX) technology does not store personal information, internet protocol (IP) addresses or browsing histories.

Other critics of the web monitoring system have included Tim Berners Lee and think tank, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, who slammed Phorm as intrusive and illegal by contravening the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

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