Former Chancellor joins Phorm board

The controversial targeted advertising company, Phorm, is back in news as the former conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, has been confirmed as joining the board.

The move has shaken up the company with the chairman and three other board members being pushed out, which puts the chief executive and a major shareholder in control of the struggling company.

Phorm is still suffering from the effects of the secret testing and in general, how they have gone about their business in the past.

The company say that the departing directors were based in the states, which made board meetings difficult.

Phorm also sees existing consumer protection in the US as making the product more difficult to distribute in the US, whereas consumers in the UK have already been shown to be vulnerable to the intrusive advertising Phorm promotes as per the previous secret tests on UK consumers.

Currently Phorm is being trialled with BT, but on this occasion the participants are invited, so that the company stay in line with the government’s wishes that Phorm should allow internet users to choose if they want to be involved or not.