BT has dropped the controversial behaviour monitoring firm Phorm from future business plans.

The network operator has already attracted criticism for its trial of the Webwise technology last year, with Phorm coming under fire over whether it is offering a legal service.

A spokesperson for BT explained that the operator will continues to believe in the interest-based advertising category offering.

He claimed that BT would be devoting its resources to "other opportunities" in light of its public commitment to next generation broadband.

However, he added: "Given these resource commitments, we don't have immediate plans to deploy Webwise today.

"The interest based advertising market is extremely dynamic and we intend to monitor Phorm's progress with other ISPs and with Webwise Discover before finalising our plans."

Last year, it emerged that Phorm had been secretly tracking the browsing history of thousands of BT internet customers.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were everyday hassles with IT (37 per cent) and security concerns (32 per cent).