Phorm and BT ready to go live by end of year

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 10 Feb 2009 at 17:31

BT will have rolled out Phorm's behavioural advertising service by the end of the year, according to Phorm's chief executive Kent Ertugrul.

Phorm has long stated that BT would be the first to implement its now infamous Webwise system, but the pair have - until now - been reluctant to put a specific timeframe on the rollout.

However, in an interview with the Dow Jones newswire, Ertugrul says that BT will be up and running by the end of the year. "We're not able to comment on specific timings but our work with BT is the most advanced," Ertugrul said. "It'll most definitely be online by the end of the year."

BT, however, isn't prepared to be so precise. "We expect to roll out the service in due course, but haven't disclosed any specific timeframe," a company spokesman told PC Pro. "Hopefully, we'll deploy the service soon."

BT said in December that it expected to roll out Webwise following a "a period of joint analysis" of trial results.

Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media are also working with Phorm, although both appear to be waiting to see how BT's deployment goes down with its customers before committing to their own launches.

Is Phorm really that bad? Read our feature here