BT Phorm trial documents hit Wikileaks

 

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Posted on 6 Jun 2008 at 11:30

Documents detailing BT's secret trials of the Phorm advertising system have appeared on the well-known Wikileaks site.

The report outlines BT's trial on 18,000 customers, none of which were informed they were taking part as "one of the aims of the validation was not to affect their experience."

Details of the documents first emerged back in April, but this is the first time they've appeared on the internet for public consumption, and they certainly make interesting reading, with one paragraph in particular liable to stoke debate.

"The opt out / in was demonstrated to work technically, however, BT may need to modify its broadband terms and conditions prior to any deployment. The change must permit BT's broadband network to silently drop cookies on customers' PCs."

The documents go on to relate that "only 15-20 trialists identified the presence of the system and had a negative reaction" before noting: "Any deployment of Page Sense will clearly require the userbase to be informed.

"Despite the fact that the system is intended to improve the relevance of advertisements through anonymous collation of browsing histories, communications regarding advertisement systems and information collection could lead to negative perception if not carefully handled."

The documents also note the complexities of the opt-out system: "Users opt out by navigating to a website and downloading an opt-out cookie. Should they subsequently clear their browsers cached history, they will silently be opted back in. A mechanism may be required to inform the user at this point that they have opted back-in, though a technical solution for this is not obvious."

You can read the full document here.

Author: Stuart Turton