Browser targeting for ads generates uproar in Britain

The only attribution that the Phorm platform appears to make is between the textually-expressed interests of the user (or users) of a browser, and the content delivered to it. That fact brings up some questions of an entirely different nature, especially with regard to the viability of the concept. In a great many households, there is just one computer, and installed on it is just one browser. Some of its users are quite young -- and some are not.

As a way of deflecting that issue, the OIX says Phorm will provide users with a kind of safeguard that protects against potentially harmful sites, probably similar to the anti-phishing filters supplied with the Google Toolbar, and which now come standard with both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

But perhaps British consumers' biggest problem with the concept is that participating ISPs plan to deploy the Phorm platform on their users' behalf -- it's not something that users can download and try for themselves if they're comfortable with the idea. The OIX says it will test multiple approaches to the problem, though it argues that an opt-out system is still, for the most part, democratic.

"Research shows that users want choice but also the protection and benefits that the system offers so we are all focused on providing the best approach for customers," reads its FAQ.

A formal online petition is being presented by the Prime Minister's office, seeking signatures from UK citizens who are openly opposed to ISPs "breaching customers' privacy via advertising technologies." The OIX contends it is doing no such thing.

Perhaps the most potent argument thus far against the Phorm concept is that the law may have already declared it illegal. In fact, the law may have already determined in advance that any kind of behavioral examination, by design, divulges information about the party being examined.

"Classifying users by scanning the content of their communications involves interception in the sense of [sections 1 and 2] of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act [of] 2000," FIPR wrote yesterday. "That is because classification cannot be done without the content being made available to the person doing the classifying. The fact that he does so by the application of machinery which avoids the need for him to read the content is irrelevant -- it is clear, for example...that material is to be treated as intercepted even before classification or examination and despite the fact that it may not be lawful to examine it."

With behavioral advertising platforms being built in the US by Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL, with the intent of being deployed worldwide, a convincing ruling by a member of the European Union could present a big roadblock for the plans of companies looking for some way to gain a technological, competitive edge over Google.