Web's creator slams targeted ads

SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE, inventor of the World Wide Web, has told the BBC that Internet users must be protected from systems that track their online activity.

The English boffin, created the Web in March 1989, and is also director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which oversees its continued development. He reckons that ISP plans to track people’s movements on the Net for the purpose of personalised advertising, using Phorm, would seriously infringe on people’s privacy.

Phorm injects targeted advertising into web pages, by using data acquired through the interception of the URLs visited by a user. It already works with three major British ISPs including Virgin Media, Talk Talk and BT and is currently discussing plans to expand the scope of its browser monitoring habits.

But Berners-Lee is dead set against the move, saying that when it comes to his personal data and web history, “It's mine - you can't have it”. He also warns yoof not to be too free with their personal information on social not-working sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Facebook has already come under fire for its attempted use of Beacon, an ad system that watches people's behaviour on and off the networking site, to provide even more focused ads. They eventually succumbed to the pressure and made the system an “opt in”.

British ISPs are still considering whether their use of Phorm would be opt in or opt out, but privacy campaigners question whether it is even legal for ISPs to monitor people’s browsing in the first place. µ

L'Inq
BBC