We regret to inPhorm you…

Link courtesy of Mr. Jeff Devine:

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11482452

Phorm’s claim that what they’re offering is a service for the web user as opposed to the advertiser would be the blackest obfuscation if it weren’t so utterly transparent.

Does anybody ever click on sponsored links anyway? I honestly can’t remember a time.

Personally I’m less concerned about whether targeted ads, or the means by which they’re delivered, constitute an invasion of privacy or not (on a certain level they’re inevitable; all ads are targeted in one way or another) than I am about the sheer avarice – even existence – of companies like Phorm. Have these people really nothing more productive to put their energies toward than the indiscriminate selling of things – anything – to Joe & Jane Webuser?

-T

~ by tridge on June 24, 2008.