Phorm confirms TalkTalk fail

Agreement terminated

By John Oates, 8th July 2009

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Phorm confirmed today that TalkTalk has terminated its commercial agreement with the web monitoring and ad profiling firm.

The company's shares fell another 16 per cent to day to 201.9p. This follows drops of 11.5 per cent yesterday and 25 per cent on Monday.

Phorm said it was concentrating on faster moving markets outside the UK for its first deployment, and: "The Company continues to make excellent progress and is actively engaged in more than 15 markets worldwide including advanced negotiations with eight major ISPs of which three are engaged in trials."

Live trials with Korea Telecom "remain on course with activities progressing in line with management expectations".

Meanwhile, in the UK Phorm confirmed that TalkTalk yesterday terminated its agreement. Virgin Media is "extending its review of potential opportunities with suppliers including Phorm prior to making any committment to launch any of these technologies.

Although BT is not deploying Phorm technology either the telco still has a commercial agreement with Phorm and does not think the technology raises privacy concerns. Phorm said BT would continue to monitor its technology, and: "The Company is extremely encouraged by the fact that BT has stated that privacy was not a factor in their decision making."

Phorm's statement to investors is available here (pdf). ®

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