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Phorm: How it went down

For a company without customers, users or revenues it's pretty extraordinary that Phorm achieved the dubious distinction of being the biggest UK technology story of the past 18 months.

It couldn't have done it on its own, of course. As it slinks away from the UK market this week, investors can thank BT executives, alongside the firm's own, as joint architects of its failure.


And a failure it now surely is. With closest partner BT effectively telling Phorm "you're on your own", and TalkTalk swearing off its agreement altogether, the firm is effectively finished in this country, at least for the forseeable future.

CEO Kent Ertugrul now faces the unenviable task of rebuilding the business overseas, starting in South Korea, where it is running trials of its web monitoring and profiling system with Korea Telecom. BT is left to reflect on what its former press chief described as "a year of the most intensive, personal-reputation-destroying PR trench warfare".

The energetic campaigners against Phorm have rightfully claimed their joint failure as a victory. To a facetious observer, the firm's assertion to investors that it is "extremely encouraged by the fact that BT has stated that privacy was not a factor in their decision making" is comical. We've long known privacy was not a factor in BT's decision-making over Phorm - that's how the pair ended up in the mess they did.

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