Phorm trial invitations revealed by Plusnet customers

A recent report released by a well known website has shown that customers of broadband service provider Plusnet were request by BT to take part in the trial of the widely unpopular ad technology from Phorm even though a recent agreement stated that non-BT customer were not allowed to participate.

The revelation came after ZDNet.co.uk issued a report showing that customers of the broadband service provider Plusnet were offered access to Phorm’s behavioural ad-serving technology as part of the trial taking place with BT.

The customers that were sent the invite for them to participate in the Phorm trial, which is also known as ‘Webwise’ by BT notified their ISP, Plusnet, earlier this week. BT had agreed previously that the Phorm trial would only be made available to broadband customers that were signed up specifically to the BT Retail service.

The BT group does include Plusnet as part of its operation, however it is classed as a separate business entity for running purposes. The invitations that had been sent out to the customers in question asking them to participate in ‘Webwise’ trial were confirmed to have been a ‘configuration error’ in the ZDNet.co.uk article.

A statement regarding the incident was released by Plusnet saying that “PlusNet customers using RIB should not normally see the BT Webwise invitation screen or be able to join the BT Webwise trial. This case is believed to have been due to a configuration error, which we acted on as soon as we were made aware of it.”

It was confirmed by Plusnet and BT that there would be no further invitations sent out the customers of Plusnet in relation to the Webwise initiative. There were also assurances that no web traffic stats taken from Plusnet customers would be used in any way by the BT webwise trial.