BT pull out of Phorm

[Nicholas Bohm]

Ian Batten wrote:
>>
>> "[Our decision has] nothing to do with cost or privacy, it's about
>> resources
>> and priority," he added.
> 
> I've been thinking about this.  It's a very interesting phrase, and you
> have to wonder why he said it.
> 
> Suppose BT's problem had been privacy.  Phorm could have countered that
> there was uncertainty today, but that as a regulatory framework was
> fleshed out the privacy issues would be if not solved at least made
> containable.  And Phorm could also have pointed out, accurately, that
> even if there are privacy issues in the EU, they would not necessarily
> obtain in the US or the Far East, which tend to have less rigourous data
> protection regimes and different cultural expectations (or something).
> 
> Suppose BT's problem had been cost.  Phorm could counter it by saying
> that in a network the size of BT's, it would require X zillion pounds of
> investment to secure a 20% return, and even though the return was
> attractive in the current climate BT simply could not raise sufficient
> capital.
> 
> But if it's not cost, and it's not privacy, the obvious interpretation
> is that BT didn't think they could make money out of it.  BT looked at
> the cost of deployment and was happy with that, and looked at the
> legal/regulatory framework and (taking the statement at face value) was
> happy with that too.  But it still didn't go ahead.   If it's not cost
> and it's not privacy, why would another operator come to a different
> conclusion about the potential return?

Might it be that once it was decisively determined that an individual
opt in from each user was required, trials showed that not enough users
would opt in to make it worthwhile?  Or that problem coupled with the
prospect of many major sites opting themselves out and reducing the
effectiveness of the profiling?

Nicholas
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