Phorm phading phast

Can Virgin and the foreigns save it?

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 7th July 2009 14:29 GMT

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Phorm shares continue to fall today, dropping another 11.5 per cent on top of the 25 per cent they fell yesterday, as another partner distanced itself from the technology.

CarphoneWarehouse's ISP TalkTalk played down its links to the ad tech developer a day after BT's announcement that it was abandoning trials.

Charles Dunstone, boss of CPW, told the Times: "We were only going to do it if BT did it and if the whole industry was doing it. We were not interested enough to do it on our own.”

TalkTalk claims 4.25 million home phone and broadband customers including those of recently-acquired Tiscali.

Dunstone's view is likely to be repeated elsewhere too - profiling your users is never going to be a big selling point for an ISP unless the returns were enough to radically cut prices. If people are sensitive to the suggestion of snooping then the industry is likely to move together or not at all.

Phorm suffered a baptism of fire when we revealed the technology had been secretly tested on thousands of BT subscribers without their consent.

VirginMedia is the only big player left in the game in the UK. It signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Phorm, as did BT and TalkTalk, and said yesterday it would continue to evaluate the technology.

Phorm raised £15m in June to offset its continued lack of revenue. The company said it will continue to look at opportunities in South Korea and the UK.

Sadly Phorm's bizarro conspiraloon blog doesn't seem to have been updated recently.

Phorm is traded on the Alternative Investment Market, with its shares currently trading at 250p, down from 288p on opening. ®

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