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BT will invite thousands of its broadband subscribers to voluntarily participate in a third trial of Phorm's advertising targeting system starting tomorrow, the two firms said this morning.

A sample invitation page posted to BT's "Webwise" pages gives details of how customers will be asked for permission to wiretap their line. It says: "As a BT Total Broadband customer, you can try an exciting new service called BT Webwise."

BT continues: "BT Webwise uses a cookie stored on trial customers' computers to remember their preference. If the cookie is deleted at any point, the invitation page will be displayed again."

BT had said that Phorm's much-criticised cookie-based opt-out method would be replaced with a new method to satisfy those customers who don't want their traffic to come into contact with Webwise-related equipment.

For the trial at least, cookies are still at the heart of the system. In its FAQ BT says that "to remain opted-out, you can set all your browsers to block cookies from the domain webwise.net". BT chief press officer Adam Liversage confirmed that opted-out traffic will pass through the system during the trial, but said it "will not be mirrored or profiled".

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