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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."
How long will it be before they start suing people for calling Claria spyware? Its inevitable. Thats what the software does. Noone wants to be advertised at, especially without their knowledge on their own computer.
We put up with commercials in TV because a TV is relatively cheap. But when most users pay 2000+$ for their computer, and then have programs installed without their knowledge with other programs, then of course the terms will be created.
Claria == Spyware (now im the first to say it)
hrrm.
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."
It likes to bite. You go down to the watering hole and it jumps up and grabs you by the neck and forces you to install it.
Claria is a social disease. You get it by going to websites that specialize in doing dirty things. Those who get it are usually unaware that they have it, and they are no doubt not using virus protection.
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
Excellent trick, tried by Monsanto when they were grilled for producing genetically hacked foods, favoured by nuclear power stations when they have bad leaks, and above all by tin-pot dictators who think that calling their ruined country by a new name will attract a new generation of foreign investors.
Crap is crap by any name. This kind of maneouver just confirms that they feel they have something to hide.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I hope slashdot doesn't get forced to remove this now...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Makes me think of how Philip Morris changed its name to Altria (Sounds like they are now altruistic) or how Palladium was changed to Next Generations Secure Computing Platform Whatever. (Sounds like they are trying to make your computer safe)
They don't change the business, they just try to run from their (well deserved) reputation.
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?
She used to read my mail without my consent.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Maybe "Chlamydia" would be a more appropriate name..
Hey man, I just installed Chlamydia!
Can you get rid of it?
I dunno, I think I gotta go see an expert.
Top hits for "Claria is" on Google...
Claria is looking for talented web developer with strong design and Java development and skills.
Claria is a top quality commercial headset at a very reasonable price.
Claria is supposed to be adorable but..ehm...please, be kind...give her back her bunny doll?
Claria is a trademark of Claria.
Claria is generally considered one of the best universities in the world
Claria is a brown eyed, brown haired, rather voluptuous 27 year old woman of average height.
Claria is the leading strategic hiring partner for technology start-ups
claria (TM) is a registered trademark of Claria Headsets
A little planning goes a long way...
Don't forget, though, that there really wasn't anything wrong with the Firestone tyres. Ford stupidly told customers to run at absurdly low pressures to improve the stability of a badly-designed vehicle, and since the tyres were being used out of spec, they failed. Everyone knows blowouts are caused by running on soft tyres (or they should).
I run Firestone tyres on one of my Citroens, because they are the closest to the proper Michelin X tyres (which aren't made in 145SR15 any more). Never had a problem with them.
New Bush initiative:
"Make no mistake, it is without any misunderestimation that I have decided that the great country that is America needs a new name. We need a name that will better symbolise the warmth and happiness that we spread throughout the world. After much thinking, we have come up with the name 'Cuddles'. Starting on January 1st, the United States of America shall simply be known as 'Cuddles'."
Daniel
Carpe Diem
That Clarica hasn't complained about Gator's new name being so similar to theirs.
If I were in the life insurance business you'd better believe I wouldn't want my name associated with something so malicious as spyware.
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
And asked them nicely to investigate any legal avenues they might have in relation to challenging gator. They may or may not react, but I think we should support them if they decide to take action. Certainly this story should be covered, to give them something to distinguish themselves from a potential PR disaster.... so Slashdot articles could send traffic their way. But only if they have the balls to stand up to these spyware bastards... or at least speak out against them.
I feel it is the least we can do to help some small company which will no doubt have to change it's name because of all this.
It's sad really. Much is ill in the world.
Another casualty is performance: these spyware programs arent just tracking your usage and pushing advertising, they are consuming finite computer resources in the form of processing power, networking bandwidth, and memory space.
I have seen firsthand what all of these programs do to a corporate environment, and it is just as bad (if not worse) than a virus. The difference between a virus and spyware is that the former can kill or corrupt your computer, while the latter weakens and sufficates it.
Since these computers have no protection against the spyware, this causes many effects- all of which bleed resources from the company.
1) degraded computer performance: the worker now has to work slower
2) increased network bandwidth consumtion: this degrades network performance for the entire company, as well as again consuming an ever-growning share of a finite resource (WAN bandwidth)
3) increased computer support: the time and expense involved in having somebody diagnose and fix the problem effecting the client computer(s)
Once you start trying impliment a solution, a company is forced to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours planning and implimenting a solution to stop all the spyware.
I would encourage companies to start taking legal action against these spyware companies. What they are doing is every bit as bad and immoral as releasing computer viruses into the wild.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
They install a program on your machine that sends data over your connection about your behavior, right?. So, why don't we give them what they're are asking for? Why don't develop a program to send fake data to the server that gator is connecting to? If the data is credible (=random but correct), they have a mountain of crap data about users ... and voila, their business plan is useless
"Hmmm, this Palladium of ours seems to be garnering a lot of bad press lately. I know, we'll call it NGSCB so no one will know what it really does!!" - Microsoft stooge.
"Man, this Total Information Awareness idea of ours seems to be upsetting those pesky privacy advocates. I know, we'll call it Terrorism Information Awareness, then if the privacy advocates cry foul we can call them unpatriotic and lock them up at Guantanamo." - John Poindexter.
Face it people, when a company/organisation changes the name of something to obfuscate it's true intentions, you know it's a bad thing.
I say play them at their own game. Just call spyware "Clariaware" from now on.
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
Instead of renaming themselves in a pathetic attempt to remove their undeniable links with spyware, why not just stop writing spyware, and instead write a piece of software that's actually useful for something.
That way, people will download their software based on it's own merit, rather than having the new Claria spyware drive-by installed on them in the same fashion that the Gator spyware currently is.
Changing your name to disassociate yourself from your past activities is something career criminals like to do. In this case it is nothing short of a total admission of guilt.
Organic free-range music... yum!
...Changing to AirTran, will probably work for it in the short term, most people wont remember the change in the long term, and there fore the ruse will work unless they change their practices. And yes the public is that stupid.
When a brand name has become a negative influence in the decision process that make consumers use (or not) a product, a standart industry strategy is to change the brand name.
It makes all sense for them to do it. On the other hand it also shows that the Gator brand name has aquired negative associations in people's minds (or so the Gator, now Claria, corporation believes) - this is a victory of sorts for those that tried to inform people about the evils of Gator products.
To maintain the pressure on this company, a possible strategy to follow is to inform people that Claria = Gator, thus maintaining the negative association in people's minds.
PS: I suspect they paid some expensive marketing consultant that told them that "Claria" brings sub-conscious mental associations with Clarity.
Dear Gator^H^H^H^H^HClaria,
Gator^H^H^H^H^HClaria is Spyware, you fuckers. Spyware. Spyware. Spyware.
Please send me a nastygram. My career is stalled, and I could really use the publicity.
Love,
Wil Wheaton ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Chris Devers
Linux/OSX weenie who doesn't even use your crappy SPYware.
PS- It's spyware.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
If they wanted better market perception, should've just changed their name to Philip Morris.
sic transit gloria mundi
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
And this is why this sort of software should be called RAPEware.
Last I checked, violating someone without his/her consent, against his will, and giving him no ability to stop it when he asks to is called RAPE in the English language.
I see no reason why the term cannot apply to one's computer.
-
I thought XP Pro was already free. Didn't cost me a cent.
Oh, wait....
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
In other news, Saddam Hussein has legally changed his name to Charlie Brown. George Bush and children around the world rejoice and they laugh together at the funny antics and antidotes of Iraq's leader and his funny dog Uday.
Why is it that Claria only supports Windows?!! Am I, a FreeBSD user not worthy of being advertised to? No Gator, no popups in Mozilla .. Well .. atleast I still have my spam email..
Perhaps a "Google bombing" is in order. I'll go first:
Get your spyware here. One-stop shopping for all your pop-up and pop-under needs.
(the theory is, if enough people link the word spyware to Claria's site, it'll become an 'above the fold' first page hit for the search term on Google.)
Let's fsck up their rebranding effort!
Come to think of it, so did the name Gator.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Here's a list of Claria's domains where downloads are available:
o n-time.com
gator.com
claria.com
searchscout.com
precisi
weatherscope.com
date-manager.com
If you're running a web caching system, block on those domains and your users are protected from unnecessary help desk calls.
This is a growing trend in corporate business. During industrial times companies were named after their primary product or, occasionally, the name of the founder.
General Motors, International Business Machines, etc. etc.
Now that corporations are increasingly involved in the amorphous "business" of owning each other and outsourcing, they'd rather people NOT know who they are. So brands are given memorable descriptive names, but the names of the financial entities behind them are designed to slide off the memory. Altria, Worldcom, etc.
Frankly I find this all very scary. The current nightmare future of corporations replacing governments doesn't have any Gibson-like overtness to it. People won't swear allegiance to Coca-Cola or fight for the Microsoft army. Rather the entities with all the power in the world will gradually become more and more vague and more and more distant from the popular conciousness. And not as the result of some sinsiter conspiracy, but rather the natural result of market trends.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
U.S. Military tests high-tech orbital beam weapon on unsuspecting drunken campers!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
As many on this board are aware, PC Pitstop launched a major awareness campaign about Gator and its activities. Gator in turn sued us, and we finally settled and the terms of this agreement are confidential. However, we'd like to post our opinion about Gator's recent name change.
We believe that the only solution to this problem is one of awareness. When a user sees a Gator Active X, it must be eventually engrained into their heads to click NO. Gator is indeed clever, because by changing names, it makes an awareness campaign more difficult and also expensive. By analyzing the recent moves, it seems that Claria is comprised of three organizations:
GAIN Publishing - This organization contains the software packages eWallet, Precision Time, Date Manager, and Weatherscope, and also the GAIN network. GAIN Publishing is also responsible for selling the advertising on the GAIN Network. Note: It seems that recently Gator/Claria has changed the name on their Active X certificates from Gator Inc to GAIN Publishing.
Search Scout - Search Scout is a product of their relationship with Overture. This organization is responsible for managing the Overture relationship, and also determining in which situations Search Scout will over ride the user's browsing experience. Note: We have recently discovered that Search Scout pops up not only when Google or other web searches but on specific sites. For example, I was listening to Gateway's earnings conference call, and Search Scout popped a full page window, with the title "Looking to purchase a computer?".
Feedback Research - It seems that this is a new organization. It seems that the purpose of this organization is to run targetted surveys to users of the GAIN network. We recently have found (and have screen shots) of a survey that Feedback Research is running to users of the Google Toolbar.
Claria is a smart company. Their name change is good evidence that they are trying to keep ahead of the rising anti Gator sentiment on the internet. So we just need to be smarter. Here are a few ideas to hopefully spur more awareness:
1. Companies UNITE. One thing that I have learned from slash dot is that the impact on company's productivity and expenses is more measurable than to individual consumers.
2. Know the beast - I hate to say this. But I want to encourage everyone to install Gator on your PC to know what it is doing. It is clear that Gator/Claria is constantly changing its tactics to its environment, and the more eyes watching their behaviour the better. Of course, uninstall the software before it gets to be too aggravating.
3. Tell everyone you know - No one is protected against Gator. It can show up on anyone's computer at any time. So everyone needs to know about Gator.
4. Tell your company not to advertise with Gator and/or Overture.
That's how "undertakers" became "funeral directors." That's how "trailers" became "manufactured housing." That's how "We're putting you on hold for the next decade" became "Your call is important to us."
--Dave Barry