Following a difficult year Phorm is looking at a launch of its service

Over a year after it was first criticised by a number of advocates for privacy the online advertising company Phorm will now be looking to continue with its launch plans.

Following on from a meeting back in 2008 executives of Phorm will now soon be meeting with members of the general public. A number of campaigners believe this service to be breaking the UK data interception laws, which has made it quite a controversial subject.

The police have now closed the file on the technology that is being trialled by BT and Phorm have now received clearance from the Home Office to continue.

Kent Ertugrul, the chief executive for Phorm said “We have been supported or endorsed by all of the leading stakeholders. Ofcom, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Home Office, leading privacy advocates like Simon Davies, the advertising industry and publishers have all backed our service.”

He continued by saying “We are very, very happy with where we are one year on.”

Any users who are with Internet Service Providers who have signed up to the new service and have the technology turned will have any websites they visit “trawled” by the Phorm system, which then compares keywords from the content page to an anonymous profile and matches any it finds.

Partner websites that have signed up to the new technology from Phorm will then be able to target users with adverts that are tailored to their interests.

Trials with customers of BT have just been completed recently by the company, and there has been interest expressed in this service by both Virgin and TalkTalk.

The timescale for the launch will remain as 2009/10, although an exact launch date was not given by Mr Ertugrul.

BT was “still evaluating and considering the results of the most recent trials,” according to a spokesman for the company.