Amazon says no to Phorm

The book seller and online retailer Amazon has announced that it will be stopping the targeted advertising system Phorm, also known as “Webwise”, from tracking its customers’ movements on the Amazon web pages.

Phorm has become famous through secret testing with BT.

It tracks users’ internet habits and then delivers targeted advertising designed specifically for the user.

However, this service has raised concerns over privacy and even the EU has got involved recently saying that it could be suing the UK government over the use of Phorm.

The decision by Amazon directly follows a request from the Open Rights Group (ORG) to ban Phorm because the group feels that this service illegally intercepts internet users’ communications and those companies that employ this service could have their brand damaged over time.