BT selling customers' browsing histories

 

Gallery

By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 7 Mar 2008 at 09:36

BT is to begin selling the anonymised browsing history of its customers to a third-party advertising company in a trial starting in the next week.

Invitations to take part in the Webwise trial with online advertising company Phorm will be sent to 10,000 randomly chosen users.

Those chosen will be shown an "interstitial page" at the start of their first browsing session, giving more information about the system, and offering the chance to opt out of the scheme entirely.

The data will be analysed and used to present more accurate targeted advertising to participating users visiting certain websites. Phorm currently has deals in place with the Guardian and MySpace to place advertising on their sites using the system.

Phorm generates a profile of your browsing habits linked to a unique number held in a cookie on your PC. This allows the company to dispose of your browsing history, while still being able to target advertising effectively.

If implemented on a wide scale, Webwise will be another source of revenue for BT, but participating users won't be offered cheaper broadband packages.

One benefit to users is that Phorm maintains a list of known phishing sites, and will flag a warning to any user visiting one of those pages.

There have been some questions as to the legality of such a system under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which may require that all users of such a system have to opt in.

"RIPA is pretty clear that the provision for notification for consent, and informed consent, have to be extremely clear," Simon Davies, who is Head of Privacy International, told the BBC.

With users able to opt out, it may be the case that BT has very little response from users in the upcoming trial. We asked BT what it would do if none of the 10,000 users chose to participate.

"I don't think that's going to be the case," said a BT spokesperson.

However, in a recent survey on Cable Forum, 95% of respondents said that they would opt out of such a scheme if given the choice.

Virgin Media and the Carphone Warehouse have also signed deals with Phorm, but are still some way from implementing a similar system.