Amazon becomes first website to block Phorm tracking

by Noelle McElhatton, Marketing Direct 15-Apr-09, 13:45

LONDON - Amazon UK has become the first high-profile website to stop behavioural targeting firm Phorm scanning its web pages to produce targeted ads.

The online retailer was responding to a letter from a customer who had written expressing his concerns over Phorm's Webwise system.

UK-based Phorm builds a profile of users by scanning for keywords on websites visited and then serves relevant ads to that user, on whatever site they subsequently visit.

The service is controversial because the issue of whether user consent is needed to conduct such tracking is not clear in UK law.

Last month the Open Rights Group wrote to the world's leading websites, including Google/Youtube, Facebook, AOL/Bebo, Yahoo and Ebay, asking them to opt out of Phorm.

Earlier this week the European Commission announced that it is starting legal action against the UK over its data protection laws in relation to Phorm's technology. The EC believes UK law should reflect the need for consent from users.

Amazon responded that it has "no connections with Phorm" and confirmed that it had "emailed Webwise requesting we 'opt-out' for all of our domains".

Phorm said it does not comment "on individual cases" but that a process exists "to allow publishers to contact Phorm and opt out of the system".

The technology company attracted controversy last year when it conducted trials of its Webwise technology with British Telecom.

At ISBA's conference in March, Internet Advertising Bureau chairman Richard Eyre described online behavioural targeting as a "game changer" for advertisers.

Amazon itself was embroiled in controversy at the weekend when its cataloging system removed thousands of books from sale, many of which contain gay-related material. The company denied it had a censorship policy and blamed an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error" for making nearly 60,000 titles impossible to find.

Comments

Paul Morris - 16/04/2009

I guess that by UK law, the EC means both English and Scottish law as there is no UK law. The job of the EC is to ensure that the Data Protection Act 1998 is compliant with the Directive \(95/46/EC dated 24 October 1995) which is the primary legislation. In this case, the EC must hold that the Phorm technology is not compliant with the Directive but that it is permitted under the DPA. Phorm claim that the Information Commissioner has accepted that their technology does not breach the DPA. If it does not, but breaches the EU Directive, then the DPA must not be compliant with the Directive. That must be the basis of the action. Many correspondents seem to hold the view that we have to rely on Europa to defend our rights because the Information Commissioner can't or won't. Sadly, this is true. Hopefully the new Information Commissioner with his background in advertising, not the law, will be more proactive. Actions against the UK Goevrnment for failing to implement the Directive correctly can take many years. I prepared a report for the EU more than five years ago demonstrating that the Act did not comply with the Directive in some important aspects \(in particular, the lack of a forum to rectify some inaccurate personal data). The action is still on-going and is still sub judice. Paul R Morris