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Gator Examined
Ben Perry writes "News.com.com has a story about a Harvard researcher's study on how Gator operates. The report 'provides some data as to how much advertising Gator is showing and to whom it is targeted' and focuses on where Gator replaces a site's ads with Gator's ads. Gator is facing several lawsuits because of this technique."
Well, we did all kinda know that gator was obnoxious, especially those of us who inadvertently installed it when it was quite new. While what it does is obnoxious, it really isn't as bad as how it gets on peoples systems in the first place.
My experience was that the user was forced to swallow gator along with software that they actually want, and was not told accurately or fully what gator would actually do. Just a nice little flowery version that makes it sound like a good thing.
Bet you won't see that in their prospectus, but it's the truth.
"Companies like Google, Overture and Gator are shining examples of success,. . ."
/. article where he says he is doing nothing different than what other advertisers use the postal system for. The two situations aren't even close.
To comapre Google to spammers and spyware manufacturers is like, well, I can't think of anything right now. But the comparison is ridiculous.
Reminds me of the quote from the spammer Scelson from a previous
How can you trust your passwords to an app the likes of gator? It is clear to me that they have to ethical backbone.
...but I repeat myself.
Sun Microsystems is using this spyware windows program to target people going to IBM's website? Is this an allegorical example fabricated for the article, or is Sun actually doing this?
I've disagreed with some of their technical decisions lately. I've certainly disagreed with some of their marketing decisions lately. But, for them to use one of the most abusive advertizing mechanisms on the Internet, is dissapointing if it's true.
What's next - "Get a B!GG3R Server - She won't believe your bandwidth" in my in-box?
Eventually, I got so sick of the whole booting up to find a new and horrific new chunk of spyware on my comp, having been downloaded by her that I ended up just formatting C: and going back to my old system files.
I certainly hope Gator gets sued into oblivion. It'll be one less thing to clean off my hard drive after my sister comes within 5 feet of the computer.
A question, though. Has anyone here ever actually bought anything off a pop-up ad after seeing it? I know I haven't, nor have I heard of anyone doing so, it just seems to be a money hole for the advertisers on the whole.
Seems to me that at one point I could actually remember making decisions based on the quality of the service offer, not the pop-up ads or advertising hype that became an intrusive part of my daily life. But maybe that's just me feeling old at 23.
...it's sneaking the spyware on the victim's machine without his informed consent that's an unfair business practice. I worry that the courts, or far worse, the legislature, will miss the point. Instead of forcing spyware to announce its presence more clearly, they'll go after the wrong thing and make modification of commercial web pages illegal, which is not only Not The Issue, it's a major "YRO" offense - an offense to our liberties.
Conceivably, and according to the bullshit they spew in their defense, a customer could want the service they provide, namely (supposedly) an intelligent browsing agent that gives the user helpful information (i.e. Expedia's airfares) based on his interests (i.e. browsing Orbitz.com). Suppose someone actually found this desirable, and maybe even found it desirable to modify his browser's rendering of a web page, or perform search-and-replace operations on the original HTML document, so that, say, every banner ad became an Expedia link. Surely he should be allowed to install such a program if he wanted. It's not as if Orbitz can sue me for modifying or differently rendering their web page in the privacy of my own home! Unless the government makes it so, in its infinite lack of wisdom.
The issue is not that spyware "hijacks" commercial web pages, but that it deceives the victim. There needs to be a doctrine of "clear language" applied to contracts like clickwrap licenses. A contract is (or ought to be) invalid if a party does not understand its terms. When Kazaa gives you fifty pages of 8-point legalese in a ten-line window, a user of reasonable competence cannot be expected to notice, let alone understand, all the contracts he is implicitly entering into - including the contract that says "We the Gator Corporation get to fuck with your computer and read all your email and analyze your personality and sell it to porn companies and degrade your performance by 95% and never tell you about it hahahahaha."
That's what the government should work to correct. But forgive me if I'm not exactly filled with confidence that it will.
"That government is best which governs least." -- Henry David Thoreau
"The more laws, the less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
Sounds to me like an easily-abused out for people who either didn't read the EULA, or simply want to get out of a contract they regret entering.
Being able to claim ignorance as a reason to get out of a contract is a terrible idea because it puts the burden on the other party to prove that you did in fact understand the terms.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
why doesn't anyone ever create a virus that spreads like a worm, but all it does is remove people's spyware.. i guess that'd be too nice huh?
MABASPLOOM!
Spyware downloads ads and sends personal information off to the company.
Sounds like Gator to me!
Adware is what many think that Gator is. That's when it DOESN'T send personal information. Opera is adware.
I happen to think that the entire audience of Gator is made up of clueless individuals. People that haven't even HEARD of Mozilla, or wouldn't know why they should think about using another browser. My mother has Gator installed. Gator advertises, and something about that advertising made her think she wanted it. Where is Mozilla's advertising? Another place I used to see gator was when I worked for a university physchology dept. Lots of people had to use computers in there but didn't know anything outside of MS Word. Lots of gator installs.
Right now I do phone tech support for a major ISP in america (no not shitty AOL). I'd say 80% of the calls I get are from people who barely are able to understand what is happening when they go online. All they know is that they click here and they can get email. I am AMAZED that the broadband industry is able to function, because these people hardly do anything more than email or light web browsing. I think they just had a bad experience with dialup or their computer is old, and they thought broadband would speed it up.
I guess over time, more people will learn what is really going on, and after a while, most of the population will be at a higher computer literacy level, but right now it is pathetic. Some of these people have trouble finding the start button or the clock; and here they are spending 2-3x as much for a DSL conxn.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Gator is truly annoying, but that is not the problem.
If Gator is successfully sued for affecting advertising, that could affect court cases against popup-blockers, or even ReplayTV and TiVo. We could loose truly useful products as collateral damage.
Gator, like ALL advertising agencies (which in effect is what Gator is), couldn't care less whether their ads work or not.
What they DO care about is whether their target market THINKS the ads work. And their target market is NOT consumers; it is those companies that BUY advertising.
So the people we have to convince that such ad techniques suck are not consumers or ad agencies, but rather, the retailers who are buying these adspaces. Unfortunately, so long as retailers' marketing departments are justifying their own existence by showering their bosses with glitz, that'll be damned difficult, no matter how often we complain that their crappy invasive ads made us buy a competitor's product.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?