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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."
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
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.
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...
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.
Gator is basically just malware like any other virus or trojan. Just because a company produces it and claims it has a valid purpose doesn't make it any less evil. The CDC started claiming BackOrifice2k was a remote administration tool, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to find someone had compromised your system and installed it on there without your knowledge to take control of your machine.
Everyone whose computer I have ever found Gator (and tons of other spyware) on has had no idea what it does or how they installed it. They click on some link (these are teenagers for example.. they're click happy) and suddenly they have a wonderful new time syncing app or a datebook! Great right? Well, until their computer eventually slows to a halt and starts crashing, personal information is spewed out across the Internet without their consent, and/or their computer is used as some kind of distributed cracking node without their knowledge. McAfee, Symantec and others need to be forced to accept that malware like Gator IS a virus and needs to be cleaned from a system. We shouldn't have to use yet another malware cleaner like Adaware to get rid of it. If Gator and other spyware made it VERY clear they were installed and cooperated 100% with the add/remove programs in Win2k to completely remove themselves and ALL their components when you remove them then I wouldn't have such a huge issue with shareware software installing it. It's an annoyance at that point, but easily remedied like having an AOL icon created on your desktop.
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
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.
I work at a rather large ISP, and strangely enough, when there is obvious adware installed, when I tell them it's downloading advertisements and such, they actually beleive the ads are coming from websites they visit (sometimes ours).
I actually had someone the other day accuse our homepage of popping up pornographic advertisements. The very first thing out of my mouth was, "Have you installed KaZaa?"
He reluctantly agreed, and said "Oh, so it's KaZaa?"
"Yep, you need to get rid of that junk"...
Here's my point: People are stupid. Changing their name once every couple years lets them stay ahead of the curve, because remember, Chrismas is coming, and we'll have another ~5-10 million (guessing here) computer users on the internet. When a screen pops up saying would you like to syncronize your time, keep a calendar, be able to see the current weather conditions, etc etc, they think: "Well wouldn't that be cool?"
The answer is no.
http://www.fsckin.com/
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