BT has dropped plans to continue with the hugely unpopular Phorm Webwise targeted advertising software.

The company, who has in the past been guilty of trialling the software without customers even knowing, has decided to drop out – apparently due to their commitment of investing £1.5bn into a super-fast broadband network for 10 million homes by 2012. It is reported that privately, however, bosses have become worried about the backlash against Phorm.

Phorm are playing down the damage caused by BT’s withdrawal – stating that there is still plenty of interest in their Webwise software. The BT decision comes on the back of a series of other knocks for Phorm though – Amazon, The Guardian, The FT and Wikipedia has all stated they won’t be using Phorm and the BBC also has also stated they are not currently interested.

(via The Guardian)