UK mobile phone firms to sell data about customer activity
Industry tells Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it plans to make information available to commercial parties later this year
The UK's mobile phone networks are to start selling data about the internet sites visited by their customers to advertisers.
The companies have been collecting the information over the past year and will use it in an attempt to generate more advertising. News that the industry has been monitoring what users do on the mobile web is likely to infuriate privacy campaigners.
The industry's body, the GSM Association (GSMA), believes that providing potential advertisers with better information about what people do online will help create the sort of advertising ecosystem seen on the fixed-line internet. In the current economic climate, where even online advertising growth is slowing dramatically, many in the industry fear companies will abandon mobile advertising altogether.
The GSMA's chief marketing officer, Michael O'Hara, said: "We can see the top sites, see where people are browsing regularly. See the time that sites are being viewed, the number of visits, the duration of visits and we can also get demographic data so you can have age ranges, male/female ranges.
"You can really start to build up a compelling case that says if you are a media company or advertising company, this is where you should be targeting your spending."
The GSMA will announce at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today that it plans to make this data available to commercial third parties later in the year.
O'Hara stressed that any advertising service that relied upon tying traffic data with personal demographic information would be done on an opt-in basis.
In the fixed-line world, BT has come under intense criticism for using technology developed by Phorm to snoop on what its customers are doing on the web, even though customers must give their permission before their traffic is watched and all information about which sites are being visited is immediately anonymised.
The GSMA stressed that the traffic data it had been collecting in the UK had also been anonymised and it had checked with European regulators to ensure that its service complied with the relevant laws.
In its trial, the UK's five networks – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – used deep packet inspection technology to collect data covering about half the UK's entire mobile web traffic.
The trial results, to be released today, show that 68% of mobile phone users visited their network's online portal while the top "off-portal" destination was Google.
Users spent most time on Facebook, clocking up about 24 minutes a day, compared with 27.5 minutes by computer users. Mobile users visited the social networking site an average of 3.3 times a day, more often than their counterparts in the fixed-line internet world.
Mobile web usage peaks between 7am and 10am, according to the data.
O'Hara described the data as "a real measurement of what people are doing with their mobile device."
"We are moving to commercial launch of publishing a set of metrics on a regular basis," he said. "At the moment, if you were trying to buy space in mobile you would essentially use survey data, so this is a major step forward."
Advertisers, however, are only expected to get a real benefit from the data once it is integrated with demographic information which will allow them to target advertising campaigns at specific segments of society.
"The demographic information is not picked up from your profile with the mobile operator," O'Hara said. "It is based on an opt-in, with people filling out a profile as a text message or with a link to a web page. When you fill that profile in, it links that information across to the activity."
Richard Wray in Barcelona
Monday 16 February 2009 08.41 GMT
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Industry tells Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it plans to make information available to commercial parties later this year
The UK's mobile phone networks are to start selling data about the internet sites visited by their customers to advertisers.
The companies have been collecting the information over the past year and will use it in an attempt to generate more advertising. News that the industry has been monitoring what users do on the mobile web is likely to infuriate privacy campaigners.
The industry's body, the GSM Association (GSMA), believes that providing potential advertisers with better information about what people do online will help create the sort of advertising ecosystem seen on the fixed-line internet. In the current economic climate, where even online advertising growth is slowing dramatically, many in the industry fear companies will abandon mobile advertising altogether.
The GSMA's chief marketing officer, Michael O'Hara, said: "We can see the top sites, see where people are browsing regularly. See the time that sites are being viewed, the number of visits, the duration of visits and we can also get demographic data so you can have age ranges, male/female ranges.
"You can really start to build up a compelling case that says if you are a media company or advertising company, this is where you should be targeting your spending."
The GSMA will announce at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today that it plans to make this data available to commercial third parties later in the year.
O'Hara stressed that any advertising service that relied upon tying traffic data with personal demographic information would be done on an opt-in basis.
In the fixed-line world, BT has come under intense criticism for using technology developed by Phorm to snoop on what its customers are doing on the web, even though customers must give their permission before their traffic is watched and all information about which sites are being visited is immediately anonymised.
The GSMA stressed that the traffic data it had been collecting in the UK had also been anonymised and it had checked with European regulators to ensure that its service complied with the relevant laws.
In its trial, the UK's five networks – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – used deep packet inspection technology to collect data covering about half the UK's entire mobile web traffic.
The trial results, to be released today, show that 68% of mobile phone users visited their network's online portal while the top "off-portal" destination was Google.
Users spent most time on Facebook, clocking up about 24 minutes a day, compared with 27.5 minutes by computer users. Mobile users visited the social networking site an average of 3.3 times a day, more often than their counterparts in the fixed-line internet world.
Mobile web usage peaks between 7am and 10am, according to the data.
O'Hara described the data as "a real measurement of what people are doing with their mobile device."
"We are moving to commercial launch of publishing a set of metrics on a regular basis," he said. "At the moment, if you were trying to buy space in mobile you would essentially use survey data, so this is a major step forward."
Advertisers, however, are only expected to get a real benefit from the data once it is integrated with demographic information which will allow them to target advertising campaigns at specific segments of society.
"The demographic information is not picked up from your profile with the mobile operator," O'Hara said. "It is based on an opt-in, with people filling out a profile as a text message or with a link to a web page. When you fill that profile in, it links that information across to the activity."
Richard Wray in Barcelona
Monday 16 February 2009 08.41 GMT
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
