ISPReview have spotted the commencement of the next phase of trials of BT's Phorm system going under the name of BT Webwise. The announcement, made on the BT Community Forums, pegs the trial to begin on the 30th September and ISPReview are expecting around 10,000 users to be involved. For those who haven't been following the Phorm debate, Phorm is a system which monitors websites that you visit and after anonymising the data so it can't be linked back to you, generates targeted advertising which should be of more interest to you. The adverts are only present on participating websites.
With the recent police investigation into Phorm being dropped BT are perhaps happier to continue progressing the development of the system with the knowledge that UK law seems to be on their side. As the system is opt-in, users can decline to run the trial which was not possible in previous tests. Concerns still exist that if there are multiple users of a computer, one could opt in all the users without their knowledge. More details including a sample opt-in form can be found on the BT Webwise pages. Phorm also sent an announcement of the commencement of the BT trial to the markets this morning.
"Concerns still exist that if there are multiple users of a computer, one could opt in all the users without their knowledge."
You are too modest. I think the concerns are a little broader than that. But perhaps by waiting so so long, BT are betting that naysayers will have shouted themselves hoarse by now and everyone else will be a little more inured to phorm. Since their zeal for money knows few bounds, maybe BT can start selling heroin to children as an encore.