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Gator Will Replace Ads On Sites
Bill Dimm writes "This CNet article says that a new version of Gator, a browser plug-in for managing passwords that also can display pop-up ads for competing products when you visit web sites, is being developed that will launch its own ads over top of the banner ads on the sites you visit. The software achieves wide distribution by bundling (much like TopText) with file-sharing utilities, with over 18 million installations of the current version claimed on their web site."
Being a linux user, you don't have to vew ads NOW. There are a myriad ways, from junkbusters to /etc/hosts manipulation to block ads in Linux. I don't use any of them, since I don't find banner ads that intrusive, but I may have to if everyone starts following the lead of Cnet with those huge, distractive ads in the middle of the story. But for now, I only disable Javascript popups, which annoy the hell out of me.
Gator? Heh. In this respect, you do have a valid point. If all the advertisers decide Unix users are too few to be worth the effort, and start designing ad technologies that only work in Windows/MacOS, maybe we will get ad-free web surfing by default. I already get it to some extent, i.e. I don't see Flash ads since I haven't bothered to install the plugin. Now if only some advertiser organization would do us a favor and declare Flash the standard for web ads...
Web sited that make their money through banner advertising have got to be unhappy about this development. Which leads me to wonder: what are they going to do to ensure to their customers (read: advertisers) that their banner ads will not be gator-substituted?
Blocking web browsers that are Gator-enabled? Probably not the best idea, but if enough important sites band together, this could put Gator out of business.
Lawsuits against Gator? This might not be a bad idea, although I have no idea how it would go through.
Hacking Gator to get around banner-ad substitution?
Offering text-and-hyperlink-only ads, Google style?
What I'm really hoping to see is Gator offer a "subscription service" to web sites..."pay up or we'll substitute your ads." That would lead to a most interesting fight indeed. And to a lot of lawyers making a lot of money.
Finding God in a Dog
Also, with IE and Mozilla/Netscape now offering password management, is Gator relevant anymore?
I know. I wasn't implying that you can't do those things in Windows, I was only trying to list some of the methods available to Linux users. If I wanted to point out an advantage of Linux over Windows is this respect, it would definitely be that I haven't yet encountered a Linux program that tries to sneak piggyback software behind my back, or even clutter my desktop with links to itself, even though I do play with a lot of software on my Linux desktop machine. IMO, that's an incontestable advantage of Linux: not being enough of a market for advertising, advertisers leave it alone. Of course, windows users can avoid spamware too by being careful when installing programs and de-cheking all those nasty options, but it's nicer not to have to go checkbox-hunting altogether...
This is the ultimate insult to legitimate businesses trying to make a honest buck on the internet. When people download Gator, do you think they're trying to download a password manager, or a banner ad replacement program? And why does Gator have to HIDE this program deep within it's TOS? And when the user un-installs its software why do they have to do it TWICE? Once for Gator and once for the adware program?
And as a legitimate website owner, how would you like to have to spend time, money, bandwidth, hardware, just so gator can STEAL all of your ad spaces? This is trespassing of the worst kind. You don't even know about it!
It's guys like Gator that give business and capitalism a bad name. What they're doing might be legally ok, but it's MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE.
eTrade SUCKS
This is one of the worst things I know, SpyWare - I simply hate freeware/shareware/ad-ware programs that use SpyWare - I recently installed KaZaa (p2p filesharing) - but 5 minutes after, not having run it, I uninstalled it, because it had installed Cydoor software on my computer (when I explicitly told it not to install it). I removed Cydoor - but then KaZaa wouldn't run.
Worried if you have SpyWare? Get ad-aware from LavaSoft - it's free and reliable.
Or you can just check your programs here - just enter the name of the software...
Or Steve Gibson's (grc.com) OptOut
Don't use SpyWare!
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
In my opinion, Gator is a virus. It is attached to the software installations for other products, and it usually installs itself on user's systems without their permission. When you try to remove it, it creates a copy of itself so it is not deleted.
It also interferes with the running of your computer. When I go to a website, I want to see that website, and view the ads that paid for that website. Gator changes that, and thus in effect is altering content without my permission. It uses up my computer's cycles and bandwidth to alter the contents of my computer's memory.
So is Gator only legal because it is a company, and has corporates paying them? Gator does appear to be a protection racket as well - pay us money, or we will take away your business (by showing competitor's ads on your page).
Christ, someone set the FBI onto this company. IMHO, of course.
I work for a university on tech support and have found while going around to various machines that Gator is bundled with a program called WebShots. Whenever I'm at someone's machine who has Gator installed they always say: "That just showed up one day; I don't know where that came from." And because they're not sure whether or not it's important they just leave it alone.
So the point being that no, standard users do not know what they're installing because they didn't realize they were installing it!!
The problem is that the users don't know what's being installed. Gator is a program that silently piggybacks itself on other popular programs like Gozilla. It doesn't bring up its own screen saying "Now installing Gator." The only indications that Gator is installed is a blurb buried deep in the fine print of the twenty page click-thru license agreement, and Gator showing up in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. Worse, when you try uninstalling Gator, a piece of it still remains that continues to perform stealth advertisement hijacking until you uninstall it as well. Most non-computer-geeks won't have the time or inclination to figure this out.
Gator is almost virus-like in its attempts to conceal itself from the user, do things without their consent, and spread itself to more machines. It includes only the bare minimum required to make a paper-thin claim of ethical behavior. With Junkbuster, the user knows exactly what's going on. Gator does its best to make sure the user doesn't know it's working.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Think about it. This is fair use. Yes, the Gator people are using it rather mischeviously. But you did (either knowingly or unknowingly) install Gator. It was in a click through, somewhere or other. But do we want it to be illegal to modify content once it has been downloaded. Gator does not go around an hack IIS/Apache to provide modifiyed pages. Rather, it modifies pages that the end user has already recieved. Much like Smart Tages. Much like Junk Buster.
Sure, get rid of these things, on your own system. But I want my right to use these things.
Everyone seems to posit this as some conflict 'over the internet'. That is simply not the case. Its a conflict over the software you have upon your computer. You download Netzero, you have to use their stupid banner thing. You download Gator?* All your ads are belong to them. You download JunkBuster? All your ads are belong to you. Simply enough, I think.
*I Realize that not everyone installs Gator knowingly. So it goes with ad-ware. Blame the companies who package their software with Gator. Don't decry software that modifies end-user content illegal/unethical.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Firstly, I use Mozilla on both OSes. I configure it to ask permission before loading images, and remember the choice. This quickly populates the database of junk image sites. Same is done with cookies, of course. Animated GIFs are set to never loop.
Secondly, I use Squid + Junkbuster chain on another computer. It acts as a caching/filtering proxy to block ads and cookies that slipped through Mozilla.
Thirdly, the firewall is configured to direct all traffic to/from known Evil Sites (tm) to where it belongs. Input packets are denied, outgoing are rejected. Doubleclick and friends are all there, as well as some "legitimate" Web sites that have questionable privacy policies (like Real). This blocks a spyware traffic from apps like RealPlayer - which require 15 minutes to properly set up, otherwise they send everything they can to an unknown 3rd party.
Fourthly, though I haven't done that yet, you can disable outgoing traffic through your firewall, except the proxy server. This makes the whole Web accessible only through your proxy.
If you want to "sponsor" some Web site and give it an ad image request without actually seeing the ad, you can use Mozilla's CSS hacks. Then the image will be downloaded but not displayed. This is also necessary in SSL mode because the proxy becomes transparent and can't block images for you; then only Mozilla itself can help.
I would have to guess that this is quite legal.
As proof, CBS and other major networks have been doing this for some time on live network broadcasts?
Did anyone see the obviously fake sign around turn 4 of the Indy this year and last? What about the broadcasts from Times Square on New Years? Did you notice the suspicious CBS logo where some background advertising on billboards and stuff was? I've even seen it in use on network broadcasts of baseball games. Ads appearing, disappearing and changing on the base of the backstop behind the batter. Real enough looking that Joe Average probably doesn't even notice.
Slashdot even had a story on this technology somewhere, though I'm too lazy too look for it at the moment. Add a reply if you find it.
If this kind of real-time replacement of ads on TV is kosher, I can't imagine how the same would not be extended to websites.
Not that I -like- this or anything. I think it's downright scummy, but then again, so are most Marketing folks.
if( read(this) ) { you = programmer; }
I got a response from them. They told me to go to this URI to disable the ads. I told them they didn't answer my questions (something along the lines of what they're going to tell their "partners" when I don't visit their sites any more). Another person emailed me and told me to go to this URI to disable the ads. I added their IPs to my firewall at that point.
funny munging
I have some idea of what Gator is for, and what (little) benefit it offers to the user but I don't really understand -why- it's being covertly bundled with so many other programs? I can only assume that software authors are getting some kind of kickbacks for packaging Gator with their programs.
Which brings it down to two separate issues; One of the issues deals with the software itself, it's ad manipulation & pop-upping. The other issues deals with the untrustworthy software that installs Gator for you. The second issue can't entirely be blamed on Gator, even though they've provided the incentives, they're not directly responsible.
But, until deceptive software like this starts getting the kind of mainstream media attention that other virii get, I don't see anything changing much. I hate to say it, but, perhaps somebody should come up with a simple, detailed "Evils of Gator, and how to remove the scourge" type message and spam it to a few million ppl, start a chain-letter, or whatnot.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
What if one put a click-through license on one's
website: "Each page of this site is to be viewed
in its entirely, without filtering." If a website
user can opt in to a device that filters
and modifies content of the
site, then a website owner should be able to opt
out of that. Symmetry. It takes two to tango.
Curtains for windows?
why not complain to microsoft, as a customer, and see if you can't get the beast to go after them for causing problems with their product. =] wouldn't it be funny to see one huge company take out another one we don't like. kind of like in doom when the imps kill each other.....