BT, Virgin, TalkTalk sign-up to Phorm’s ad platform

BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk have signed up to an advertising platform created by Phorm, in order to gain a foothold in the online targeted ad market.

Phorm’s platform connects the Internet Service Providers with advertisers and Web sites, allowing online ads to be targeted according to a user’s anonymous browsing trends.

Phorm believes that advertisers will pay more to advertise on Web sites signed up to the Open Internet Exchange (OIX) marketplace, because their ads will be more relevant to users and will therefore be more likely to be effective.

Phorm and the ISP’s will share in the incremental revenues created by the process.

Phorm’s platform remembers the subjects a user has searched for and links this information to a user profile. The actual users and their Internet numbers remain anonymous.

It offers a free security feature called Webwise which will protect customers from online fraud.

Internet advertising is growing rapidly and research from media buying firm, ZenithOptimedia, suggests that the Internet will take an 11.5 per cent share of all ad revenue by 2010.

Phorm hopes to sign up other ISPs and publishers, both in the UK and overseas.