Open Rights Group Letter

On Sunday 22nd March 2009,the Open Rights Group published a letter they had sent to major websites calling on them to exercise their ability to opt out of the Phorm system.

... "While we recognise that an 'opt-out' is an entirely second-rate way of dealing with this problem, we would strongly urge you to take advantage of it, in order to immediately reduce the risk of harm to your company and to your customers.

Making your decision public will provide reassurance to your customers, and will help them retain confidence in your brand, as well as in the integrity of the Internet as a whole." ...

Amazon, Wikipedia and others opt out of Phorm

A list of websites which have opted out is maintained on the Phormwatch blog. Most notably these include:

Others include youthnet.org. Jim Valentine, Communities Manager for YouthNet, said: "With Phorm, other people using a shared computer, say at home or in school or college, could start seeing adverts based on what a young person had viewed on our site. ... anonymity and confidentiality are essential."

The BBC considers opting out of Phorm

On Friday 22nd May 2009, the BBC responded to a Freedom of Information request asking for information on all meetings and correspondence regarding Phorm, including dates, attendees and agendas.

A useful summary of the response was published by PaidContent the same day: "Many senior BBC executives want to follow Amazon and Wikipedia by opting out of on-net behavioural ad targeter Phorm - a blow which could trigger a damaging flood of similar requests." The BBC's distribution controller Richard Cooper was quoted as saying of Phorm "from a technical perspective, it's evil".

UK Governmment may already have opted out of Phorm

On 6th July 2009 in its report on BT's decision not to proceed with Phorm The Guardian stated that the UK government is understood to have opted its domain names - such as www.direct.gov.uk - out of Webwise amid concerns about privacy. The article also indicated that Google and Bebo were also considering opting out.

Nationwide Building Society opts out of Phorm

On 21st July 2009 The Guardian reported that Nationwide said it had decided to opt out of Phorm to protect the privacy of its customers. "We have had discussions with our online advertising agency on Phorm and as a result of this review we have decided to contact Phorm and ask them not to scan the Nationwide website. Investigating the service that they are looking to offer, we do not see the benefit to our customers or to us of allowing them to scan the Nationwide website in this way."

Google may block Phorm

On Thursday 12th November 2009 BEUC (the European Consumers' Organisation) held a conference Consumer Privacy and Online Marketing in Brussels. In response to a question on whether they would block Phorm if it went live, Google was reported as saying that "they would probably follow the actions of organisations such as Amazon and Wikimedia, in other words, yes."