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Last month, the three internet service providers, with 9 million households between them, signed up to software from an AIM-listed business called Phorm, run by colourful American tycoon Kent Ertugrul.

Phorm monitors what content surfers browse on the Net. It will then send to those individuals ads which match the interests they have shown through their browsing. Advertisers pay Phorm a fee, which it shares with the ISP.

Phorm says the customer's identity is "anonymised" so advertisers would not be able to tell who they are.

But the IT community is up in arms, dubbing the practice "data pimping," and is still worried about being spied upon. A website, badphorm.co.uk, has been set up specifically to attack the move.

Professor Peter Sommer, author of The Hacker's Handbook, claims it is illegal. He argues that it is an interception of a public communication which is in direct contravention of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

Ross Anderson, Professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said: "The message has to be this: If you care about your privacy, do not use BT, Virgin or TalkTalk as your Internet provider."

Anderson said that, historically, anonymising technology had never worked. Even if it did, he stressed, it still posed huge privacy issues. He gave the example of a woman who had had an abortion without telling their partner. If she had surfed websites like Mothercare or other baby-related retailers and advice centres while making up her mind about the termination, her family's computers might suddenly start receiving baby ads, creating suspicion from the husband or boyfriend.

Phorm counters that it will not collect data on sensitive areas like adult or medical data.

Ertugrul said: "I'm not the Prince of Darkness I'm made out to be. The people who have criticised Phorm just haven't seen it. What we are doing will bring greater privacy and fewer rubbish ads people aren't interested in."

He stressed that, unlike Google and other search engines, Phorm would not be storing any details of websites visited or searches made. All it retains is the general category of the sites - for example, fast cars.

The Information Commissioner is investigating, having been approached by Phorm. BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media said they had done due diligence on Phorm and were happy with the privacy situation.

Users are also worried about the background of Phorm itself. It, and Ertegrul, were pioneers of software known as spyware, which monitored customer's websurfing and made unwanted pop-up ads appear on screen.

Phorm's PeopleOnPage spyware, which it calls "adware" was notoriously difficult to eradicate once a PC was infected.

Ertegrul said: "Look, it is undeniable that we were in the adware business. But three years ago we shut it down and closed off all that revenue simply so we could address the perception issue. It is obviously a challenge now to get people to understand who we really are."

If the websites and university lecture theatres are anything to go by, he has an uphill climb.

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