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A Gator By Any Other Name
MFS! writes "CNet reports that Gator, everyone's favorite ad software, is changing its name to Claria. Gator's CEO says "We feel that the Claria Corporation name will allow us to better communicate the expanding breadth of offerings that we provide to consumers and advertisers." He fails to mention what "Claria" is supposed to mean or how it accomplishes this goal, but it seems that the name change may be no more than an attempt to distance the company from a moniker which has become involved in allegations of spyware."
We feel that the Claria Corporation name will allow us to better communicate the expanding breadth of offerings that we provide to consumers and advertisers."
Translation: "We feel that changing your name will allow us to continue our evil actions under a different alias... and continue to profit."
The CEO said "We feel that the Claria Corporation name will allow us to better communicate the expanding breadth of offerings that we provide to consumers and advertisers"...
Instead of communicate he ment to say obfuscate. Its an understandable mistake...
Crap by and another name still sticks to the bottom of your shoe and smells bad...
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
He fails to mention what "Claria" is supposed to mean or how it accomplishes this goal
It just illustrates why you don't name your company after a single product line. If that product turns out to have bad side effects (like cancer or flipping SUV's over) then you need to change the company name so prospective investors and customers don't think it's the only thing you do.
Did you know Bridgestone is the parent company of Firestone? Of course you didn't. And while you would probably think twice about buying a Firestone tire for your SUV (even though it was only one model of tire involved out of Firestone's entire lineup), you wouldn't think twice about putting on a Bridgestone tire.
Likewise, if Gator wanted to come out with a second product tomorrow, they couldn't - because who would install Gator Calculator or whatever? Nobody. But who would install Claria Calculator? The same millions of users who installed Gator.
What's your damage, Heather?
Maybe they are right about it not being spyware (who knows what information it is sending back, but maybe it is none), but it is certainly SPAMware.
Currently, there are a couple vendors that provide "remote, automated guru service". Symantec and a few antivirus vendors look for malware using a series of tests devised and constantly updated by experts, and then applied to many, many computers.
Ad-Aware searches for spyware and adware.
Windows Update searches for updates to Microsoft software.
There are websites that will scan your computer for basic remote security holes.
The problem is that there is a growing number of components that do automated guru tasks, because there isn't enough gurus, enough time, or enough money to take a guru out to each house or even work each machine remotely. People don't need to know about each field, as a result, but *do* need to be aware that such software is necessary in each field and run it/buy it/whatnot. What's needed is some (probably commercial and relatively inexpensive) comprehensive "Complete Computer Maintenance Service". It'd do automated virus checking (might do a partnership with Symantec to use their engine), look for spyware/adware, provide updates from *all* software vendors, warn about security issues with your current setup, look for common misconfigurations, warn about discontinued software that you're still using, provide simple flowchart based troubleshooting and possibly fix-it wizards (Outlook doesn't work), etc. The big benefit is that currently almost all home machines are unadministered, and this could be done quite cheaply, because it scales. Hell, OEMs could bundle service like this.
The important thing is that each machine must *never* require actual individual attention from a human being, or else costs shoot up (though perhaps optional commercial phone support could provided as a separate service). The base service should be on the order of $10/month at most. It'd keep IT costs down and keep small businesses and home systems much more maintained than they are now.
My suggestions here were somewhat Windows-centric, mostly because most current Linux folks *need* someone else administering their box, but that will probably change as well.
This is also something that "Joe Sixpack" publications like PC World could easily review ("service foo caught more problems on our ten test machines that service bar did").
Finally, a corporate version of this service could also be sold to even places that can afford in-house IT staff (one that pops up its reports on a centralized control machine in an IT center). That makes a *good* first pass for IT personnel (so they don't blow time on ordinary tasks), helps keep up on problems with specific software that no single IT guy can possibly keep up on, and makes the service money.
May we never see th