BT 'illegally' trialled targeted-ads tech

BT has been accused of conducting illegal targeted-ads tests on its customers in 2006

BT has been accused of conspiring to conduct secret tests of targeted-ads technology on its customers as far back as 2006.

According to documents seen by The Register, BT secretly intercepted and profiled the web-using habits of 18,000 of its customers between September and October 2006 using technology supplied by 121Media – the company that later become known as Phorm.

The same documents also reveal that BT and 121Media used the information they gathered to target customers with adverts for Egg credit cards, Weight Watchers weight loss programmes and the Monster.com job recruitment site.

Bad phorm?

In a later report on the outcome of the trials BT openly admits that none of the participants were made aware of the fact that their internet use was being monitored and profiled, or that they were being subjected to targeted ads for the duration of the trial.

"The customers who participated in the trial were not made aware of this fact, as one of the aims of the validation was not to affect their experience" the report states.

This is in clear breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), which states that the interception of internet traffic, without an investigative warrant or user consent, is illegal.

In recent weeks, debate has shifted to an assertion put forward by the Home Office that the interception and analysis of user data could be deemed to be legal if the user gives prior consent to such an act. However, these latest accusations occurred in 2006, long before the Home Office got involved.

Party line

To date BT has refused to answer the $6,000,000 question as to whether it believes the 2006 trial was legal, preferring instead to trot out the official party line that none of the profiled users were individually identifiable.

However, Nicholas Bohm, a digital rights lawyer with the Foundation for Information Policy Research, has since told the BBC that the 2006 trial could well be deemed illegal under RIPA: "If the customers in 2006 and 2007 weren't invited to do anything and it was completely surreptitious… then it was a massive-scale illegal interception.”

"They couldn't at that stage have had any guidance from the Home Office, or had anything in writing, as nothing was issued until January this year," he added.

Latest in Internet
The logo of the social media app Bluesky is seen on the screen of a mobile phone
Bluesky gets a massive video upgrade to tempt X fans who are frustrated by its cyberattack outages
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Thursday, March 13 (game #1144)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Thursday, March 13 (game #375)
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Wednesday, March 12 (game #1143)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Wednesday, March 12 (game #374)
Twitter social media application change logo to X. Elon Musk CEO of twitter rebranded Twitter to 'X'. Social media application technology concept.
X is back – here's what we know about the 'massive cyberattack' that caused Twitter to go down multiple times
Latest in News
Google Gemini Robotics
Gemini just got physical and you should prepare for a robot revolution
Lilo & Stitch Official Trailer
Stitch crashes into earth and steals our hearts with the first trailer for the live-action Lilo & Stitch
GTA 5
GTA Online publisher Take-Two is gunning for a black market that’s basically heaven for cheaters
Y2K cast looking shocked
Y2K has a streaming release date on Max, so you can witness the technology uprising at home
The Discovery+ homepage
Discovery+ just got a big update to its streaming app that makes it more like Max – here are 5 great new features to try
Two Android phones on a green and blue background showing Google Messages
Struggling with slow Google Messages photo transfers? Google says new update will make 'noticeable difference'