Phorm, formerly known as 121Media, is a Delaware, United States-based digital technology company known for its advertising software. Founded in 2002, the company originally distributed programs that were considered spyware, from which they made millions of dollars in revenue. It has since stopped distributing those programs after complaints from groups in the United States and Canada, and announced it was talking with several United Kingdom Inter...
More
Phorm, formerly known as 121Media, is a Delaware, United States-based digital technology company known for its advertising software. Founded in 2002, the company originally distributed programs that were considered spyware, from which they made millions of dollars in revenue. It has since stopped distributing those programs after complaints from groups in the United States and Canada, and announced it was talking with several United Kingdom Internet service providers (ISPs) to deliver targeted advertising based on the websites that users visit.
The company's proposed advertising system, called Webwise, is a behavioral targeting service (similar to NebuAd) that uses deep packet inspection to examine traffic. Phorm says the data collected will be anonymous and will not be used to identify users, and that their service would even include protection against phishing (fraudulent collection of users' personal information). Nonetheless, World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee and others...
Less