Phorm goes on the attack against 'smear campaign'

Online advertising company Phorm has gone on the attack with a new website that accuses its critics of orchestrating a "smear campaign" to "distort the truth and misrepresent" its technology.

The StopPhoulPlay website describes the company’s critics as "privacy pirates" and lists them by name alongside mocking titles such as "The Angry Activist", but those named have dismissed it as "childish" and having "already backfired".

Alex Hanff, a campaigner described on the site as "one of the prime movers of the smear campaign against Phorm", dismissed the allegations as "ridiculously childish".

"The website is staggering – it beggars belief. The only thing I can see it achieving is to make them the laughing stock of the industry," he said.

Marcus Williamson, described on the website as "The Concerned Consumer" told the Daily Telegraph that Phorm had "stooped to personal smears ", while the Open Rights Group, also named on the site, said the site was " extraordinary" and said it had "already backfired".

"While Phorm can reasonably question the ORG as a public organisation, making comments about individual campaigners is appalling," a representative said. " Phorm is involved in work that requires concern for privacy, so making spurious claims about private citizens' reputations is especially distasteful."

The front page of the StopPhoulPlay website quotes a message posted online by Simon Davies, a privacy campaigner whose company 80/20 Thinking produced a favourable privacy assessment for Phorm. The comment suggests that anti-Phorm campaigners might have been paid, or have taken advice, from Phorm’s commercial competitors.

"If people here are talking with the enemy's competition … then there's a possibility by any standards in the real world that they are also taking money or advice from them or that they have some other vested interest," he writes.

We asked Phorm whether it agreed with the allegation that anti-Phorm campaigners were being paid by or taking advice from its rivals. A representative said it was "not making that suggestion" but was "highlighting concerns about the campaign against us". The company would make no further comment on its use of the quote.

"I don’t believe that the founders and the core activists [of the anti-Phorm campaign] have been compromised," Mr Davies told Computeractive, "but commercial competitors have been riding the coat-tails of the campaign. It is in the interests of quite a few companies to see Phorm disintegrate, and a quite honourable campaign has been hijacked on the periphery by commercial interests. "

Phorm told us that the website, despite listing its critics by name, was " not intended to be personal". Mr Hanff was not convinced by this response. "You can’t put a cast list up at the side of your website, with derogatory comments, and then say it's not meant to be personal," he said.

When asked whether the negative tone of the website was an indication that Phorm had failed to sell its technology on its benefits, its representative told us that "we wouldn't call it wholly negative … we'll still be talking to people, but it's just another way to engage".

Mr Davies said that the website "falls between two stools… were this a satirical website where there was humour then it could have had an effect. The problem is that it tries to make light of the opposition, while not delivering the satire needed to maintain the dignity of the company," he said.

"Phorm is absolutely within its rights to respond, but I would suggest it adjusts the tone somewhat," he concluded.