TalkTalk balks at opt-out ad tracking

11 March 2008

Internet service provider TalkTalk is to make a controversial new user-tracking scheme 'opt-in', according to BBC News.

The scheme, developed by digital technology company Phorm, would be the first to record data about individuals' use of the web direct from ISPs, rather than from participating websites. Information on user behaviour would then be used for targeted 'smart' advertising.

Phorm says that the system will also be able to warn users in real time when they visit fraudulent phishing websites, and that it has built in radical new safety measures to ensure that users' identities are protected.

Attracted by the prospect of a share of ad revenues, major broadband providers BT, Virgin Media and Talk Talk have signed up to the platform.

However, last week concerns over privacy spurred the government's information regulator to act.

Now Talk Talk appears to be appeasing those concerned, by offering customers an up-front choice about whether their data is passed on.

"We will be endorsing and recommending take-up of the system but we want to ensure that customers make their own decision," a spokesman for TalkTalk told the BBC.

Advertisers fear that making the system opt-in will significantly impact its reach, and chief executive of Phorm, Kent Ertegrul, said that he found the attention to this aspect of the scheme "a bit bizarre".

"There is no way of not knowing that this is switched on," he told BBC News. "There is a clear choice offered to consumers and I am surprised that there have been so many questions about this."

Category: e-commerce, Online marketing