While NebuAD has gotten plenty of heat in the U.S. for their plan to buy user browsing data from ISPs and deliver targeted ads, a company in the UK by the name of Phorm has seen even greater scrutiny. That's in part because the company began its money-making life as a spyware and rootkit developer named121 Media. Whereas NebuAD is fairly forthcoming about their systems (even if ISPs aren't), Phorm tries to warm consumers to the idea by pretending that their system can protect users from phishing scams.

The company also found itself under fire when it was revealed that they conducted a secret trial with British Telecom, without anyone bothering to tell consumers. A former rootkit developer secretly buying your browsing history under the guise of an anti-phishing solution obviously rubbed people the wrong way, but only in the UK where Phorm was supposedly active. But now it appears that Phorm conducted trials of the technology with American ISPs as well:As with NebuAD, it's doubtful that any of these customers were alerted to the fact that their browsing activity was being tracked, nor was the opt-out option effective.