Sunday, April 06, 2008

Experian to Track Internet Users

James Ashton writes on The Times Online:

Experian, the credit checking company, is braving mounting concerns over internet privacy with plans to launch a service that will track broad-band users’ activity so they can be targeted with advertising.

Through Hitwise, the web-site company it acquired for £120m a year ago, Experian has held talks with internet service providers to sell its monitoring technology.

Observers expect it to compete in part with Phorm, an AIM-listed company that has stirred controversy after being recruited by BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media to track their 10m customers’ behaviour so they can be sent advertising messages on the websites they are looking at.

However, the key difference is that Hitwise, which describes itself as an “online competitive intelligence service” would play little part in dispatching the advertising to web pages itself, something that Phorm does through its Open Internet Exchange.

More here.

Hat-tip: Flying Hamster

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