Phorm: damn the EU, full speed ahead!: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica

Phorm—even the name conjures up "phear" among opponents of the company's targeted advertising technology. But what does Phorm say about itself? Its stated goal is "to create a new, more responsive, intuitive kind of Internet experience, and that sounds hard to beat. But the EU has some hard questions about the way the company has gone about its business, and it wants answers that the UK government appears strangely unwilling to provide.

Phorm's business model is much like that of NebuAd here in the US: partner with ISPs, slurp up all that delicious user surfing data, then use it to toss users into various content silos. Visit photo blogs, for instance, and your profile will be tagged as being interested in photography, though the actual websites that have been visited will not be logged. These categories will be used by websites that partner with Phorm in an attempt to provide more relevant ads to users (and receive better rates from buyers).

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