Virgin clarify agreement with Phorm

Friday 02 May 2008 15:02:00 by John Hunt

Virgin Media has updated its website with information on Phorm and the Webwise service that it is currently evaluating. Previous news from Phorm had indicated that Virgin, along with BT and TalkTalk, had signed up to deploy the service to their customers. Virgin's latest update is, however, at odds with this statement. They state that they have signed a "preliminary agreement with Phorm to understand in more detail how this technology works", but had not made a firm commitment to actually implement the service.

Virgin also confirms on their Phorm and Webwise information page that if it decides to test the technology, it will do so only with individual users consent, and that any implementation will not see customers forced to use the system. Recent news has seen the revelation that any use of Phorm must be opt-in which is reassuring for consumer privacy, but must be a blow for Phorm as it will inevitably reduce the number of users that adopt its system.

The Register has another snippet of Phorm news that indicates that Phorm may have taken the idea for its company logo from a Sheffield based design agency, Phorm Design. A possible court case could be on the cards.

The on-going Phorm coverage from the last couple of months can be seen in our news archive.