Shares in Web-Usage Tracker Phorm Continue Slide

Shares in Phorm Inc. continued falling Tuesday, a day after U.K. telecoms provider BT PLC said it had no immediate plans to deploy Phorm’s targeted advertising technology on Internet connections.

Shares in London-based Phorm were down 4.4 percent in morning trading on London’s AIM market at 270 pence, after falling by 40 percent on Monday.

Phorm’s Webwise system tracks individuals’ use of the Internet to target them with relevant advertising.

The system has been strongly criticized by privacy campaigners and by Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the Internet. NebuAd Inc., a U.S. company which was developing a similar system, shut down this year after potential customers backed out.

“To allow someone to snoop on your Internet traffic is to allow them to put a television camera in your room, except it will tell them a whole lot more about you than the television camera,” Berners-Lee said in March at a Parliamentary event where he clashed with Phorm’s chief executive, Kent Ertugrul.

Phorm has said its system would ask users whether they wanted to use the Webwise system, and that it would not store browsing histories or IP addresses.

BT announced that it had no immediate plans to deploy the Webwise system for its 4.8 million broadband customers, saying it needed to spend its resources on more urgent projects.

Two other broadband providers, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, have expressed interest in the system but have no immediate plans to adopt it.

In a statement on Monday, Phorm said it looked forward “to creating the conditions necessary for U.K. ISPs to move to deployment.”

However, it said it was trying to move faster on opportunities in other countries.

“In addition to making excellent progress in South Korea, we are engaged in more than 15 markets worldwide including advanced negotiations with several major ISPs,” the company said.

Phorm, which has been traded on the…