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Gator Files for IPO to Raise $150 Million
michalas writes "Wired reports on the IPO filing of adware/spyware kings Claria who have recently changed their name from Gator.
Claria on Thursday filed for an initial public offering to raise $150 million to continue developing its 'behavioral marketing platform.' Claria had a net income of $35 million on revenues of $90 million in 2003. In addition, Claria said it has 43 million active users and 425 advertisers."
Yea, the only way I'd buy this stock is if my static ip address is blacklisted by their crapware so that it won't/can't install itself on my systems. Surely an incentive like that would entice people to buy into this IPO.
Of course, then they'll have their money for development except by that time every person with a computer will have purchased a share of stock to keep that crap off their system...in which case there would be no reason for them to continue development of the software, and really have no reason for them to continue to exist as a company.
Heck, where do I sign up for that?
I remember seeing a comment earlier about how Microsoft buys up companies and shuts them down or kills off the technology. Maybe MSFT could do us all a favor, buy them out, and shut them down? It's probably one of the few humane things to do...
They are now Claria, that is so much less predatory than Gator. They were just misunderstood.
" 43 million active users " Those are not users, they are called "victims"
In addition, Claria said it has 43 million active users and 425 advertisers.
I think 'infected computers' would be more likely. Whenever I tell people I can make those pop-ups stop by running Ad-aware, they are more than happy to remove themselves from this list of 'active users.'
Claria said it has 43 million active users
...of those 43 million "active users" only three are actually aware that they are running Claria's "product".
Of which 7 know they are.
What a coincidence, as I'm starting an IPO shortly, too! We're hoping to raise $150 million, which will be metered out as payment for the head of each Claira investor.
DRM = Digitally Restricted Media. This is a viral sig, pass it on.
The good thing about Gator going public is that their Financial Statements will tell us what advertisers are funding them. Makes for a nice boycott list.
Does anyone know where to get a list of the 425 advertisers, so I know which companies to avoid?
Also, Claria said their certificates represent "the latest in investor-tracking technology." Claria's executives plan to use the small audio monitoring devices embedded in each certificate to learn valuable insider information about upcoming shifts in the stock market. "This represents a new direction in the stock market. Never before have companies used their stock certificates as a way to gather valuable investor information," said Claria's CEO in a press release today extolling the virtues of Claria's new business venture.
Addressing privacy concerns, he also mentioned that, "Anyone buying this stock knows exactly what they're getting into. We fully disclose all information about our monitoring technologies to anyone who bothers to break into our company's vault and read the encrypted data therein. Anyone who claims they were misled about privacy simply hasn't done the proper espionage expected of both parties entering into any contract. After all, if you don't catch us spying on you, it's your fault."
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
The selection of the name "Claria" is a study how to avoid a mucked-up name... pick a made up word that has the seems to have the a tie to the words that represent what you wish you weren't so bad at.
People think you can't keep your promises? Call yourself Verizon or Verisign... "Vari-" meaning "truth"
You're stuck in the drug business trying to make people get high? Call yourself Altria... "alt-" meaning high
People confused about complex multiple rate plan options? Call yourself Cingular... kinda sounds like "singular" where there's only one option.
You're main product requires confusing people into aceptng it to work? Call yourself Claria... even though there's nothing clear to users about what they're getting themselves into.
Gator has 43 million users in the same way that 43 million people actively have the common cold. They have no control over how they got it, can't do anything about it, and don't notice that it's been gestating until they start sneezing bright flashy ads. It's that sort of misrepresentation that makes me want to work in the department of Statistics and Information Synthesis.
At any rate, how can someone "use" Gator/Claria? Their "users" are simply presented with ads and such. Are you a "user" of the ads you see on Television? No. You are an audience member, and a very passive one at that. Amazing. Simply amazing.
Despite what the company does, after interviewing with them, I felt like it would be a good solid company to work for. They had a great dot-com atmosphere, used open source technology, and paid well - my position was for Perl programmer. And they even allowed you to work from home. I didn't have the XML::Parser experience they were looking for, so I didn't get the job. One thing they revealed to me was that they did actually track what you were searching in Google. This part I didn't like. If they can watch you on Google, they can capture data from any form you fill out - although they claimed Google was the only form they captured data from.
It's All Politics
Not to sound extreme here but lots of spyware can cause a system to act just like its infected with virii and cause it be unfunctional.
I have seen it first hand.
My gf's pc and at work where I assist students in a university computer lab.
My gf's computer use to take 20 minutes to boot and would reboot every 30 minutes or so and was highly unresponsive. Especially IE.
McAfee anti virus showed no viruses? I then ran ad-aware and it found 600 objects and tons and tons of spyware.
After that it was fine.
Second, spyware installs backdoors( tell me that does not sound like a worm)so hackers can see your keystrokes and get things like credit card numbers, etc. God forbid anyone doing the taxes with these worms aka spyware ridden systems. Hackers can easily do identity theft.
So I ask slashdotters now. Why is gatorsoft legal? If this thing was called A.mydoom or something the FBI would hound them.
THis is pure fraud, it steals computer cycles, causes break-ins, etc. Its a worm in my book. It may not copy itself to other systems but it sure acts like one. Hmmm I bet if gator soft did email itself over the address book then it could get even MORE customers. lol
This and Divx need to be brought down.
http://saveie6.com/
That would be like Hepatitis C Inc., boasting about their 500 million customers. This reminds me of Mel Brook's radio skit about the LMNOP Advertising Agency: "We just got the Cholesterol account. We're trying to move Cholesterol into the American heart. It's going to be tough, but we'll win. Advertising is a lot stronger than life."
Calling the Gator software GAIN was just an attempt to try to associate themselves with a clean, fresh scent.
For someone with more time on their hands than me:
1)Start some media fear mongering about a "Claria Virus".
2)Include instructions for removing said virus.
3)Feel good about what you have done to help society.
Let's take that philosophy one step further ... so you'd support a company that sold a product that caused Cancer or AIDS as long as you didn't use that product? Nice to see you've got principles.
In my opinion, after spending 2 hours removing spyware from a friend's computer, Gator's products are no more than viruses.
Which leads me to my point.... why doesn't Symantec (Norton) classify Gator as a virus. It has all the hallmarks of a virus (hell... Blaster was LESS destructive. It just rebooted your machine), and no legitimate use. How isn't it a virus?? Just because the company's legit at the moment, does it really make it okay?
Can anyone answer me?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Man, someone needs to go Steve Irwin on that gator's ass...
You can't take the sky from me...
Claria take their name from Chlamydia, a common sexually transmitted infection that many people do not know they carry. Someone in the advertising/PR department must have had a bit of fun with that one ;)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Partial list of advertisers, courtesy of Harvard
News story on Harvard wrestling with the then Gator corp
I know most people here are laughing at the thought of anyone stupid enough to buy into this IPO. But all it takes are a few ignorant or greedy fund managers to pump this stock. This is why I generally invest in blue-chip stocks or market index mutual funds over standard funds, which these days seem to be corrupt.
I think there's maybe six or seven financial investment companies that haven't been sanctioned by the SEC in the last two years for unethical activity. You can't trust the American media to even let you know when your investment company has been fined $200M for insider trading. The best source for really finding out how sleazy Wall Street is is through England's Financial Times, which doesn't pull any punches. If you have an IRA or any money in funds, keep a close eye on it. These rich fund managers are making a fortune off the pennies most working people scrounge up and think will be there for them in the future.
I never really dabbled much in the market until recently when I had a broker "friend" make recommendations for me. After I lost a bundle, I set up my own account on E*Trade and started doing my own investing - I beat my broker's ROI by 14% within six months. I'm pretty convinced these days most people in the financial community don't know anything, but that doesn't mean a bunch of people won't make money in this Gator IPO, but it will probably be at mutual fund holders' expense.
My advice to people is take control of your finances and invest in companies you believe in. Pull your money out of funds so you're not unwittingly financing SCO or Gator -- you'd be surprised how often you're in bed with the devil through your IRA.
that the company now has $150 million that can be targeted by the enterprising trial lawyers. Let the litigation begin!
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What sort of setups do the admins out there have for blocking this stuff? Anything at the gateway or proxy level??
For a long time, I have been using a lot of off-the-shelf scripts and utilities hacked together as an anti-spyware, anti-virus proxy. Anyone out there doing the same care to comment?
For web stuff, I use squid to block a lot of stuff that is usually spyware. It pretty much kills any software that auto-installs (except for java webstart). Usually not to big of a deal-- the business calls the help desk and we walk them through a manual install of flash or whatever it is they need. For very common spyware, we let it infect one test machine then redirect traffic through the proxy to those sites. Ideally, we block the file name or active x control with squid. It isn't a perfect solution though...
For email, I am using p3scan, a pop3 proxy, and a couple simple scripts to rename all untrusted attachments to something else. We also have a nice script that strips out all non-image, non-formatting related html in email. The email soltion seems much more elegant and nice than the web solution-- anyone know of any setups better/similar that cut gator & other companies off at the knees like this??
In practice, this is has reduced our crapware-related helpdesk calls at least 10 fold.
Depends on what you mean by "support," but probably, yeah I would. As long as they were forthright and honest about what risks were entailed in using their products.
Yes, i have principles, it's called a belief in freewill and the right to make your own choices. If someone wants to use a cancer causing product, and they've been told upfront that the product may cause cancer, it's their life to do with as they wish.
I support drug legalization, but i don't think drug education is a bad thing either, as long as it's _real_ education, but "facts" the government is trying to brainwash you with.
Oh, and have you heard about the new chemical they've found in cooked starches that they think causes cancer? Am i supposed to boycott all baked goods producers because of my principles?
And as long as we're talking about principles, how about those "principled" health activists that are trying to force resturants who sell french fries to add a cancer warning but who don't seem to be urgent to get companies to label bread and pasta in the same fashion? They want to get people off of french fries but apparently have no problem supporting companies that make products with the exact same chemical in them but which are considered healthier in other aspects.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
They wanted SCUM but were told that a small company from Lindon, Utah has dibs on that one...
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
Most all browsers have these same features built-in now. I'd guess people running Gator do so because it either came bundled with something else they installed, or they clicked the wrong button closing a drive-by-download dialog.
Such programs are really only a shade away from being a legalized virus. Unfortunately there's already legislation brewing - which, like most recent laws, will either be ineffective, make life more difficult for legitimate developers, or shackle us with even more Draconian copyright laws.
My own solution would be to make the CEO of any spyware/adware company personally come over and remove the software from anyone's PC who didn't want it.
I work at a computer help desk at a college campus. Off the top of my head, removing spyware/adware is 75% of my day's work. To put it bluntly, most of these "active users" aren't "active" in any sense of the word. What they are is "unwitting." Nine times out of ten, if I show a student what I find on their system, they haven't a damn clue how it got there, or that it was even there in the first place.
That's the problem when you have spy-/ad-ware masquerading as legitimate software being offered third-party to a nearly computer illiterate culture. Let's face it, the majority of the people who own computers don't upkeep them like they should, and so Gator and their ilk can claim members. If the general populace knew enough to do basic maintenance, it would slash these farcical "active user" numbers, not to mention make my job easier.
Actually, it looks like Apple of Germany was the only company placing the ads (or having the ads placed on their behalf by an ad agency). All Apple's branches are in charge of advertising within their own countries. I guess Apple of Germany thought it was a nice way to get switchers... annoy the hell out of them for using a PC with Gator :)