So, over the last few weeks (and while I've been away and not blogging), the vile company Phorm - formerly spyware merchants 121media - have been in the news. In rough chronological order:
- They raised £15 million in some share deal or other
- They began talking of (and, I think began) trials of their vile DPI system in South Korea
- They pre-empted their financial results with the announcement of a desktop implementation of their behavioral advert targeting (strangely undescriptive)
- Financial results were released, revealing no income over the year, but expenditure of $50 million
The question in my mind is, how long can a company with a poor reputation (due to their previous activities), with an intrusive and possibly illegal technology, which has no ISP partners signed up (even after three trials - one open, the other two secret) keep going?
See also:
Wikileaks: UK firm Astaire Securities pushes Phorm-Webwise, 15 Jun 2009:The controversal company Phorm, which runs the behavioral profiling, interception and advertising injection system "Webwise" is currently trying to sell shares. Astaire Securities, a UK brokerage, has been touting the stock to investors with this private BUY coverage.Astaire's recommendation of Phorm seems to me to consist of a considerable amount of wishful thinking, coupled with an energetically upbeat spin of some pretty poor news regarding the legality of Webwise. Hohum - business as usual, I guess.
Some suspect that Phorm is duping investors with misleading statements to the market, such as "We believe that Phorm's technology sets a new standard for consumer protection, a view endorsed by the UK's Home Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Office of the Information Commissioner."