Discounted Broadband ISP Price-Cut Incentive mooted again by Phorm

The idea of offering broadband customers who agree to adopt the new Phorm system, which provided targeted marketing by trawling the websites broadband users visit, a discount in pricing has again been considered by online marketing company, Phorm.

The controversial company Phorm, which monitors the websites accessed by users of ISPs in the UK in order to provide each user with unique targeted (behavioural) advertising campaigns, is again looking into offering any broadband customers that agree to adopt its new system with a range of price discounts on their services.

A poll that the company ran back in September 2008, which gave users the choice of various different option that would encourage them to take this new service up, is where this latest consideration has come from so this news isn’t really anything new and although it was always something it promoted as part of the system it also offered the option of an anti-phishing system.

The options that were included in the September 2008 Poll were: £1 off monthly broadband bills, £1 cash back per month, a cut of advertising revenues, an upgrade to a faster broadband package at no extra cost, parental content controls, free anti-virus software, a free premium technical support line and free music download vouchers.

The additional proposal of donating to charity was made by Phorm and was recently seen at a Town Hall Event in London called Phorm: One Year On. It would seem to suggest that this latest move may mean the company is closer to picking an incentive shortlist and as long as ISPs don’t increase their broadband prices in order to compensate it is easy to see why having broadband services at a lower price might be quite appealing.

The ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont has, in the meantime, now been promoted to Chairman of Phorm’s Board following his previous appointment as a Non-Executive Director in the latter part of last year.