Web Publishers Sue Gator

shofmann writes "The Washington Post is reporting that a number of publishers, including the Washington Post, is suing Gator Corp. over their obnoxious spyware, saying that Gator is "a parasite that free rides on the hard work and investment" of other people's web sites. The lawsuit alleges that Gator's spyware contributes to trademark infringement, misappropriation of the news, and represents unfair competition." The publishers seem to be distressed about Gator replacing website ads with its own. Several people submitted this related article about blocking internet advertising - nothing really new here for geeks, but a good URL to send to your less technically-inclined friends.

Comments

Ad-aware

[RML]

Yet another reason to use Ad-aware.

Re:Gator sucks, but...

[Apreche]

The thing is that there are people who are paying money to put those ads on a website. The difference here between the magazine or television and the web is that the guy who runs the site gets money when people click/lead or whatever the pricing plan may be. If you cut ads out of a magazine, the magazine doesn't care. They made their money because the advertiser paid for the ad to be in there, and it was in there.
On the web the advertiser not only pays for ad placement, which in turn brings them direct profits (e.g: online casino), but the person with the website depends on those ads being shown so he can get paid through cj, or whatever system he uses.
Gator most definitely sucks because not only is it evil spyware on peoples computers. But it takes money away from people who are trying to pay the hosting bill for their very cool web sites.
I mean, even slasdot is getting paid for the ads on the site. And if those ads don't show up because gator replaced them, then gator is indirectly stealing revenue from slashdot. Instead of say google (with its ultra cool google rackmount box thing) paying slashdot, company X pays gator.
Do you now see why suing gator is the way to go?