badbadmonkey - 9:50 am on Jun 12, 2008 (gmt 0)

1984 parallels are hardly constructive. If these were govt inspired initiatives designed to track citizen's interests and trends, then that would be appropriate. But this is just the natural trend of advertising and capitalistic motives. Moreover, "Big Brother", elected by you, continues to protect you with relevent privacy laws and recourse to the law in the event of a civil infringement.

I for one do not especially care. In fact I want to see sensible advertising. Nothing is more annoying than TELEVISION ADS, 95% of which are targeted at a demographic I am not in. So annoying! But, some TV ads are of interest to me, and if 95% were, I might actually watch them instead of switching channel! Rather see the same with web ads. Inefficient advertising is just wasteful, annoying, decreases the profitibility/viability of websites you visit, and increases the cost of products you purchase.

The only issue would be if my habits (confidential) became disclosed and associated with my name, which has the potential to be damaging. But there are policies and also the law to guard against this. A company like Phorm, and their associate ISPs, endure nothing but knee-jerk reactions against this sort of initiative, so you can bet they will avoid any real controversy like the plague. In fact you can hope they publish in the Times a list of the last ten sex sites you visited okay? cos the settlement they'll offer you to avoid court will set you up for life :)