Phorm announces new Webwise widget

Phorm has begun a charm offensive to win over the hearts and minds of the public to its web monitoring system.

Possibly realising targeted advertising was not much of a hook in the public’s mind, the developer of the controversial Webwise ad monitoring system has added a widget that it claims will give consumers a better browsing experience.

The Discover widget gathers links to subjects people are interested in. For example, someone going to a newspaper website to read stories about the Middle East peace process will be shown additional links giving information on the topic. Although there are no ads included, Phorm didn't rule out the possibility.

Phorm conducted a survey of consumers’ opinions at the end of May and said it was well received, with 82 per cent of the 2,000 people surveyed liking Webwise when bundled with Discover.

Calling it a “ground-breaking product” and “the next generation of browsing”, Kent Ertugrul of Phorm said the percentage of people surveyed who liked the concept was more than for the BBC's iPlayer when it was first announced.

The Discover widget uses the same technology as Webwise behavioural marketing software.

The aim of Webwise is to deliver ads that are targeted to web users’ interests. In order to do this it monitors people’s web browsing activities using what is called deep packet inspection to examine pages.

Although Phorm said the data collected is anonymised and can’t be used to identify users, the technology has caused privacy experts deep concern. Even the EU has entered into the controversy.

In March, it started infringement proceedings against the Government for non-compliance of privacy laws sparked by complaints to the European Commission from UK internet users about major internet service providers (ISPs) using Webwise.

When it announced the development of Discover, the company reiterated that the widget did not breach privacy laws and people would be able to turn it on or off as they wished. However, people will have to use Webwise in order to use Discover.

Webwise and Discover have only been launched in South Korea so far, and Phorm said it had no announcements to make about UK ISPs using the technology. However, it said discussions were still ongoing. It also said that making Webwise an ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’ service would be up to the internet service providers if they chose to implement Webwise.