Slashdot Mirror
Going From Gator to Claria
Ant writes "Wired News has an article on the famous spyware company that went from Gator to Claria. From the article: 'Three years ago the company was considered a parasite and a scourge. Today it's a rising star -- selling virtually the same product. How a pop-up pariah won the adware wars.'" The name change happened about two years ago, and a lot has changed since then.
Steps to regaining legitimacy:
Personally, I still despise Gator...uh...Claria, and all it stands for. The legitimization of spyware...uh...adware just leads to it being even more prevalent, and for every 'legitimate' adware app, there's a score of spyware apps out there that don't bother to play by the rules. Things would be much easier if all spyware could be treated like the infectious waste it is, but of course economics dictates that will never happen.
From TFA:
In other news, cats are in favor of open birdcages.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I still don't trust 'em. It's a little like the Mafia deciding to go straight.
I find it slightly disconcerting, as a subscriber to the print version of Wired Magazine, that a lot of the articles I pay to receive every month end up on their website for free and then are subsequently linked to Slashdot. Seems like there isn't much point in paying for the magazine when I can read most of the articles free of charge on their site. And online you don't have every other page being a block of advertisements like you do in the magazine...wow, the more I think about it the more worthless that subscription is. Good thing is was a gift :)
Is it because the High Priest Microsoft deemed Claria Clean?
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Is still a turd. I can't count how many times I have had to uninstall that gator trojan from family and friends computers. And before firefox/google toolbar for IE was around, you would look up and 15 windows would be open trying to sell you crap.
No punishment is too lean for these cockroaches.
Its still a scourge.
Few people in the online business community question the idea that marketing software should track user behavior. Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, says it's possible to track people online without being underhanded. The FTC is in favor of online advertising, she explains, "and sometimes tracking makes advertising work better for consumers." Esther Dyson, who has been harshly critical of spyware companies in her influential newsletter, Release 1.0, agrees. "As long as there's disclosure and people are given a choice, I think monitoring users' behavior isn't a problem," she says.
The problem is, the online business community never asked the right question. What they need in that disclosure is "Are you willing to give up half the bandwidth and computer memory you paid for so that we can serve you advertising?"
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If it looks like spyware, installs like spyware, is removed like spyware....it's spyware
AT&ROFLMAO
Anyone who doesn't STILL consider Claria to be a parasite, raise your hand.
How a pop-up pariah won the adware wars.
- Won? The tech savy people ditched IE for Firefox, Opera or simply moved to Linux, so the tech savy people "won". The non tech savy people had no clue WTF was Gator, nothing changed today, they have no clue who Claria, 180 and other scumware makers are. All they know that their PC is spamming them with p0rn and it's slower. Not to mention they accept this blindly. Face it, 90% of computer users are too lazy, don't care and/or clueless.
Start a happiness pandemic
Not enough has changed until these types of programs are illegal, and the executives of the companies that make them are serving Enron prison sentences.
They are human scum of the worst possible kind. High Priests in the religion of capitalist greed.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
"Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Microsoft came close to acquiring Claria"
Wow! These Microsoft guys are running out of ideas how to piss their users. Hopefully Gator's experience will do a vast contribution in that area.
(Only joking)
Three years ago the company was considered a parasite and a scourge
Some would also say they were mangy dogs and landlubbers as well...
Arr!
Is it Yet Another Public Relations Stunt? How much claria paid "wired magazine" so that they will write something positive about them, huh?
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
- Toned down their intrusiveness on victims' machines
- Become a known quantity rather than a shocking intruder
- Survived and made some money, thus earning de facto legitimacy as a business
They're still a scourge -- just a legal and known one.They have already incorporated as BabyKillers Inc., and are ready to switch names if the heat ever comes onto Claria.
I know a lot of people still boycott Wired for that shit they pulled a while back (sending out unrequested subscriptions, then sending the bills to a collection agency), so here's a mirror:
Back in 2002, Gator was one of the most reviled companies on the Net. Maker of a free app called eWallet, the firm was under fire for distributing what critics called spyware, code that covertly monitors a user's Web-surfing habits and uploads the data to a remote server. People who downloaded Gator eWallet soon found their screens inundated with pop-up ads ostensibly of interest to them because of Web sites they had visited. Removing eWallet didn't stop the torrent of pop-ups. Mounting complaints attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. Online publishers sued the company for obscuring their Web sites with pop-ups. In a June 2002 legal brief filed with the lawsuit, attorneys for The Washington Post referred to Gator as a "parasite." ZDNet called it a "scourge."
Today Gator, now called Claria, is a rising star. The lawsuits have been settled - with negligible impact on the company's business - and Claria serves ads for names like JPMorgan Chase, Sony, and Yahoo! The Wall Street Journal praises the company for "making strides in revamping itself." Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Microsoft came close to acquiring Claria. Google acknowledges Claria's technology in recent patent applications. Best of all, government agencies and watchdog groups have given their blessing to the company's latest product: software that watches everything users do online and transmits their surfing histories to Claria, which uses the data to determine which ads to show them.
Apart from plush new offices at the northern edge of Silicon Valley, it's remarkable how little the latter-day Claria differs from the old Gator. It's true that the company has toned down its most aggressive tactics. Journalists, watchdogs, and regulators seem mollified. For the most part, though, the company is in the same business as before, courting the same customers and selling a product that does the same thing in the same ways. Claria wears in a sharp suit and has a scrubbed face and coiffed hair - but it still looks a lot like Gator.
CEO Scott VanDeVelde doesn't deny this. "I don't feel like there's a need to wipe the slate clean," he says. "Our technologies are dead center of where the market is going."
The spyware wars are over - and spyware has won.
Like many dotcoms born in the late 1990s, Gator began with an idea for a product - but no clear way to make money from it. "Our idea was a program that would store your passwords and automatically log you into password-protected sites," says Wally Buch. Buch brainstormed the software with a friend, Symantec founder Denis Coleman, who would remain involved in the company until early 2004. They called it eWallet.
Buch came up with the missing revenue model a few weeks later as he waited in the checkout line at a grocery store. The woman in front of him bought diapers, and he noticed that her receipt included coupons for baby products. Buch realized that the Web could do the same thing for advertising: If he kept track of sites people visited, he could deliver ads that reflected their interests and thus increase the chance of triggering a sale.
Along with then-CEO Jeff McFadden and VP of marketing Scott Eagle, Buch and Coleman decided to give away eWallet and use it as a sort of Trojan horse for pop-up ads. As users surfed the Web, ads would appear based on the site they were visiting.
The gambit worked. Millions of people downloaded eWallet, and Gator's bank balance began to grow. A host of similar companies followed, including WhenU, 180Solutions, and DirectRevenue.
In 1999, Gator parlayed its early success into $12.5 million in financing. That's when McFadden and Eagle decided the company's main product was not password-storing freeware but a covert ad-delivery platform. "Things really changed after that," Buch recalls. "It's not
From the fine article: "Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Microsoft came close to acquiring Claria." Guess what that means, folks?
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
Should have named their company "PIRANA". It would be more fitting.
All is prevelant in the world...
1. That they are still purveyors of one the most insidious brand of spyware.
2. Most of us still know it.
3. My already-low opinion of them remains so.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Al-Qaeda changes name to [insert something totally benign and arbitrary here]!
Wow, because they changed their name they must be a peaceful and genial organization now...
I meta-moderate because I care.
I really don't recall - but isn't Claria one of the loudest complainers and threateners of lawsuits when it comes to being labelled Spyware?
I always wondered about how fine a line the anti-spyware companies have to walk when making the determination.
And one more question.
What does the company that pays Claria get for its money really? Do they pay to be added to a list of ads, or do they pay for each time their ad gets popped up?
I suppose it's like spam, as long as some small percentage of people buy the products advertised it's profitable. I still don't understand how the trading of tracked-preferences does anybody any good though.
Kevin
a lot has changed since then
Nothing has changed, not at all. Even the article admits that it is the same old same old, but with a brand new spiffy suit. Changing the name does not change the function of the software.
I remember Gator from when I was a freshman in college. Everyone was installing it on their computers, I even admit to installing it on mine once. However, it was a beast to get rid of. I think I had to put a fresh install of windows on there to clear it up. Claria is no different from Gator, or any other spyware program, except is has a PR department. Well, whip-de-do!
Coming from...1-413-652-9287 as the sender, Message center: 1-970-376-9328.
So we have Cingular participating in carrying a spam text message promoting Hot97 radio station and specifically promoting Angie Martinez, using a Microsoft product to achieve their means.
So Microsoft pursues a handful of spammers, makes headlines for successfully prosecuting a few, yet they have no problem with radio stations using spammed text messages to promote their gaming console.
This isn't the first time, it happened a while back again, so I'm sure Microsoft got complaints the first time around, so they know what's going on. As long as it has to do with competing against Sony and winning the gaming console wars, anything including spam goes, right Microsoft?
Most folks don't realize having adware and a 3rd party (non-browser integrated) pop up blocker running at the same time just slow down the system even more.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
CEO Scott VanDeVelde doesn't deny this. "I don't feel like there's a need to wipe the slate clean," he says. "Our technologies are dead center of where the market is going." The spyware wars are over - and spyware has won."
Why does this quote sound oddly familiar?
Agent Smith: We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
Neo: Yeah. Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about, I give you the finger [Neo flips off Agent Smith]
Neo:
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
...that advertising people, particularly those who infest the sphere of personal computing, live in a universe that's parallel to the one in which the rest of us live.
There's a lot of talk about revenues. There's a lot of talk about private lawsuit settlements. There's a lot of talk about how effectively these guys can invade your user experience on a personal computer. At one point in the article, I read a line about Gator (Claria) suing another company for "(interfering) with its right to deliver pop-ups."
As P.J. O'Rourke would say, "What the fuck, huh?! I mean, what the fucking fuck?!" Where on Earth did these scumbags ever get the idea that they have the right to do these things? I don't see anything at all mentioned about about ethics or otherwise doing the right thing. When a few weeks ago Stewart Baker admonished Sony BMG (not directly, but everyone knew who he was talking to), "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer," I was astonished that someone in such a position as his would step up to the plate for people like us.
Thing is, whether they're Claria, or Gator, or whatever name they want to call themselves, I still think they're still bad news. I'm just glad they're myopic enough that they haven't targeted Macintoshes yet.
As an aside, Annalee Newitz first came to my attention in the entertainment paper Metro distributed here in the South Bay area. I'm not sure if she's syndicated, but I like to think of her as a local. She's pretty sharp.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Today it's a rising star
/. editors, we don't care.
Wow. I never thought I'd see the day that the Slashdot editors whored for a spyware/adware company.
Do you guys really think we're *that* gullible? Posting a link to this article does nothing either way when the entire presumption of interest in this "rising star" is flawed. No one here cares about Claria, all our anti-spyware and anti-adware programs remove it so. Posting an article about it doesn't even give us a rise anymore, it's such a non-issue.
The only assumption one can make then, is that the editors are whoring for any type of publicity (good or bad) they can get to make Claria a new item. This isn't a Sony rootkit-type of story.
Sorry
And how they use the name "Altria Group" when possible. I like how that name almost sounds like the word "altruistic" even though they're making billions by killing people.
Am I competely wrong? Is it still libel if its true?
Is there any chance I can get that on a T-shirt?
I used Microsoft AntiSpyware today to remove Claria. Microsoft AntiSpyware reported Claria as a threat but the default action was set to "ignore" instead of "remove".
To whoever is maintaining Microsoft AntiSpyware: People are annoyed by Claria. Even the most computer-iliterate understand that something is wrong with their computer and it reflects poorly your product. People think they have "a virus".
I think Microsoft AntiSpyware is a great product, please modify it so it removes Clarias' software by default.
Regards A.C.
...God had a better marketing department.
Little known fact*: When the Greeks invaded Troy, they first attempted to sneak past the Trojans in a large wooden alligator. The subsequent bad PR that resulted when said alligator erupted into a flurry of Greek soldiers led the Greeks to later rebrand their distribution model under the guise of a much friendlier-looking horse. The resulting slaughter was much the same, but had a much better marketing campaign. Years later Gator followed the same pattern, only replacing the large wooden animals with spyware, and the murderous Greek soldiers with pop-up ads. The Greek implementation is arguably less irritating. *Fact may or may not be complete and utter bullshit.
They're still the same hated company. They havent been accepted by any end user.
I resent the statement that a "Spyware" company won the adware wars. There isnt anything to win, other than the total obliteration of these kinds of software.
Gater lives on, the war continues.
for every 'legitimate' adware app, there's a score of spyware apps out there that don't bother to play by the rules
substitute "spyware app" with "p2p user". And you wonder why RIAA hates p2p?
It's libel if you can't afford the lawyers to fight it.
Just like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, James D. Rockefeller, and Leland Stanford did i the past, Claria is trying to do good to pave over all the ill deeds they performed to get them to where they are now.
If the effort to change their ways is sincere, then they can be forgiven. As comments thus far have shown, proving that can be pretty hard to do.
The real evil here is that if people understood their computers, they would never allowed this to be installed, if it was, the would remove it and Claria would not see these huge profits. If you can only make money off stupid people you are evil by definition.
Claria is spyware!
I said it again, where's the lawsuit?
-bZj
.sig
Google - with its interconnected search, email, chat, blogs, and social networks - is also in the business of targeting ads based on user behavior. So are MSN and Yahoo! All three maintain profiles of everyone who signs up for their services. They use cookies to track what visitors do on their sites while they're logged in; the downloadable Google and MSN toolbars track which sites users visit when they're logged out. Like Claria, Google has amassed a vast database of user profiles that it plans to use for even better targeting in the future.
Sounds like someone is trying to say "hey it's ok, everyone's doing it!"
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
To say that they've won the war is like saying that Japan won the war when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I'm fairly certain that every tech support guy, network administrator and general techno-geek goes out of thier way to crush, kill, and remove every piece of spyware they can find. I know that I do.
The only thing they won is the attention of the media, and the sales from people who click on everything and anything they see...in short, the kind of people you wish you could set up a Linux box, lock them out of everything more dangerous than thier web browser, and never let them know the root password.
Morons.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Also, the eula's of all of these garbage programs can't possibly be considered informed consent... could they?
And finally, as a programmer, it just flat out pisses me off that people use their coding talents (and I see it as a talent as well as a skill) for such a crappy cause.
A Haiku: my language choices/assembler pascal lisp c/old school programmer
People have all kinds of problems with Claria because it used to create these evil popups. Well, Google, in a much more surreptitious manner keeps profiles of all who sign up for their services. Oh, and Google uses cookies to track logged-in users and using its toolbar tracks the sites users visit when logged out of other Google services (Gmail and such). So, Google is doing it in a much more hidden manner than Claria had in the past. That is also mentioned in Wired. Before you so quickly diss Claria, do keep in mind the kind of data mining Google does.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
What exactly is the benefit for using Claria?! Why would ANYONE want ads showing up on their computers?! Can someone explain this too me? This company is making millions and aren't give the end-users a single benefit.
It can't be eWallet. All modern browsers can store usernames and passwords.
It appears to be that Claria succeeds on nothing more than tricking (l)users into installing the software. And how is that a good thing?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Yes indeed! If they are legitimate now, and have value (and shares) they can be sued. How many slashdotters have, like myself, have probably spent days (total) removing this crud? And this was in a controlled office environment, not even counting time helping relatives and friends.
Basis for class action lawsuit
Time effort and lost productivity and bandwidth in removing gator/claria products
1)
a) time to remove the product, and the time and effort learning how to
cleanly remove it.
b) subsequent loss before removal of the product of efficiency
c) recovery of costs for displaying ads using clients (not advertisers
resources)
2) Damages
a) absence of a proper removal tool (complete uninstall) required in some
cases reformatting and reinstall of Windows and all applications by a
cpu professional.
b) subsequent loss of the computer for said period
c) trespass
Given today's legal environment, I eagerly await seeing some suits of this nature going forward. Claria's Bankrupty could be so beautiful.
This Wired article is full of misinformation, and reads like a press release from the Claria public relations department.
Here's the truth.
1. The perception: Spyware continues to be perceived as a huge threat. Just look at the Sony fiasco (a google search for "sony spyware" returns 18,600,000 hits). The anti-spyware market place continues to be active, with lots of competing products, and new players are still appearing.
2. The reality: Spyware continues to make workstations slower and less stable. Spyware phone-home traffic continues to suck up large amounts of bandwidth on corporate networks, if you don't have good protection installed. And Claria continues to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. Anti-spyware products continue to detect, block and remove Claria spyware.
3. The article implies that anti-spyware vendors are no longer protecting against Claria. That's certainly not true for the anti-spyware products that my company ships, and it's not true for other products I've tested. Although Wired puts the well-known spin on Windows anti-spyware (OMG Microsoft is in bed with Claria), it continues to detect Claria, it still warns you if you try to install it, and it still gives you the option to remove it.
Now, it's true that Claria software is slightly less abusive of your computer than it used to be, and Microsoft did downgrade the threat level based on this change in behaviour. But the fact that Claria has made their software less egregious does not mean that "spyware has won". It means that the anti-spyware crusaders are having an effect on corporate behaviour. Just as they are now having an effect on Sony's behaviour.
Doug Moen
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
>
> Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, says it's possible to track people online without being underhanded. The FTC is in favor of online advertising, she explains, "and sometimes tracking makes advertising work better for consumers."
>
> In other news, cats are in favor of open birdcages.
If step 7 is "..." before "Profit", then I humbly submit that the answer for "..." is to "lobby HomeSec".
Gator CPO at the Department of Homeland Security
In United Soviet States of America, privacy watchdog watches YOU!
...scourge go Kamikaze. Just sacrifice a wraith to draw it off...
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
I tried to goto claria.com from work.
Our webwasher message said i was denied for trying to access a site in the category: Computer Crime
Read The Fucking Article.
Asshat.
The rise of open source software elliminated the need to download "ad-sponsored software". I still remember the days where Gator was used to download big files over the net. But now we have bittorrent, or Shareaza (which happened to be spyware at first, but now went open source). And let's not forget about Opera, which, in the beginning, was also ad-sponsored.
Want free email app? Thunderbird. Want free wordprocessor? OpenOffice.
And this is why the term "adware" has slowly vanished from download sites, to be replaced with "open source". If Claria has faded into a low-profile company, it's because the world has changed.
Steps to regaining legitimacy
When did they ever have legitimacy?
The name change is from a deadly predator to something more akin to a drug, a wonderful, glorious drug designed to relieve you of your burdensome privacy:
Claria. Ask your IT department. It's time to ask your IT department. Ask about Claria.
Claria side effects include bandwidth loss increased advertisement and loss of privacy if they continue or are bothersome check with your IT department contact your IT department immediately if your develop rapid or pounding disk access OS instability or unusual sluggishness while using this software.
Claria. It's right for you.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The spyware wars are over - and spyware has won.
Sad but true. People (including myself) are willing to sell their privacy to get free software.
Claria is perhaps best known for the Gator spyware products, which display ads on the computers of web surfers. It bills itself as the "leader in online behavioral marketing". As a result of the problems relating to its software and the way it has often been installed, Claria Corporation may be the Internet-based company with the worst corporate reputation.
Circumcision is child abuse.
There already exists a form of tracking which in both non-invasive and user controlled - I believe they are called "cookies". Anything that goes further than this (as in - eating up my CPU processes and RAM to background run your fucking spyware app on my PC w/ out my permission) would be labeled by me as unethical, devious, immoral, and downright mean.
Of course everyone knows that prostitution is illegal... I would never suggest that our company get into that sort of business.
However...
I have heard that there is a growing market for "Personal Entertainment Practitioners" who make house calls. Perhaps there is a place for our company in the lucrative field of Realtime Adult Entertainment Facilitating.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
LIKE HELL!
The comparison's to GMail aren't apt either.
GMail isn't installing crapware into your system.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
rebrand your company. You see, it was Philip Morris that had all that trouble with lawsuits not too long ago. Altria Group is lawsuit-free!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Click here to express your feelings to them.
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in an election.
Has anyone seen the Chappelle show where Dave talks about if the internet was a place that you could go to?
I have the following analogy for Claria:
Claria comes to your house, and unannounced bashes through your front door, rifles through your refrigerator, cabinets, and personal belongings, taking notes of what it's found. It then blocks your driveway as it camps out on your lawn, and uses the rest of your front yard to place huge billboards. Basically, it uses all your resources for shit you didn't want anyway.
If you did in IRL what Claria does to your computer, you'd be a multiple felon. I regard their company and their products as the SCUM OF THE EARTH, and what they do RUINS THE INTERNET FOR EVERYONE (how many times have I tried to ressurect my wife's/mother's/best friend's scumware-laden heap? Too many, that's how many).
Trespass and theft (of personal information) is trespass and theft, no matter what medium you do it in. If only the USDOJ recognized this.
Just a few paragraphs into the Wired article, and we get to read about how the lawsuits started flying.
The answer to spyware: eradicate all of the lawyers *first* and THEN call in the air strike on Spyware HQ.
Just so you can thank them if you meet one. After all, they have changed for the better, and it is only right that we let them know we appreciate it.
names are not mutally exclusive. Using thier logic if i sat on a corner selling bibles and crack I could not be called a crackdealer because I prefered to be called a bible salesman.
It's not slander if its true. The definition of spyware is anything that monitors and reports your actions to a 3rd party. They have admitted that is exactly what thier product did. Regardless of whether the user agreed to the intentionally long EULA it does not prevent them from getting advice about thier computer. Just imagine if every company were allowed to sue everyone who made a recommendation against thier products. Even non-profit organizations such as better business bureau would be liable.
I personally sat in on a pitch by Mr. McFadden and listened to him explain Gator's(at the time) direction. It was basically this:
Get the software on every machine possible in any way possible.
Gather as much data as possible and tie the data to an individual(this was not directly stated but we all know it was hidden in the meaning) What was stated was to gather data based on demographics.
Sell compiled marketing information to Direct Marketers (yes that is right, physical junk mail in your inbox)
Imagine surfing pron for a while and then later getting brochures in the mail for Kong Dong or something similar.
At the time I wasn't sure if the concept was viable but their connections and sneakines apparently worked.
That Offer Companion they have....was not their idea. It actually was implemented by iChoose in Dallas first but could not make it viable at the time. Gator came along and snagged the idea.
Claria has a deal in cash for microsoft not ot remove their products and also will sue anyone who tries to remove their software due ot loss of revenue. I believe they are going after lavasoft as well.
http://saveie6.com/
"I think Microsoft AntiSpyware is a great product, please modify it so it removes Clarias' software by default."
Sure thing. I'll put the boys right on it.
-Bill
I once worked for a student newspaper and decided to test Kazaa's "no spyware" claim for a newspaper article. I called it "Trying to like Kazaa".
I had uninstalled GAIN from my sister's computer before. It was relatively painless, and seemed to barely slow down her computer. It was just a small program, and she only surfs the web. It only popped off 1 pop up window every now and then when you closed the web browser. No wonder some people aren't annoyed by it.
(I think GAIN becomes more intrusive if you install more GAIN-supported software, or let's say, a P2P software with more functionality.) She had just installed "Precision Time", a program which synchronizes the clock, and the temperature widget next to her clock.
Naturally, she did not do an informed consent, for one thing, she's a minor, and for another, how is anyone supposed to read those ActiveX dialogs? We'll call that "-1". - several more for occasionally advertising itself as a "windows update".
But it was easy to uninstall. They fixed that eventually. You just uninstall the "Precision Time" and any other GAIN-supported application and GAIN uninstalls itself automatically.
With Kazaa it was even better, doing an uninstall removed GAIN. Kazaa did not uninstall correctly, even after a system restore. But GAIN uninstalled correctly. (for those who are wondering, the culprit was dw.exe, and shortly after this "test", the Microsoft Office's Dr. Watson also called dw.exe started to crash on shutdown.) Hmm.
The point is that I tested it with Zonealarm and Winpatrol. It appeared to uninstall itself completely.
It's still sneaky, but it works as advertised in my tests, although my friend has multiple profiles, and WeatherBug caused registry corruption. (if I interpret the Microsoft KB correctly), luckily a system restore fixed it.
I just installed all of the software and highly recommend it for anyone afraid of spyware.
http://saveie6.com/
Gator becomes Claria, Philip Morris becomes Altria, a con man changes the address of his scam mail order company. They still put out the same crap they always did, just preying on people who aren't aware that they changed their name...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
According to the article, they have won dozens of millions of dollars.
You're right. That's not shit.
I bet that within six months of there being a politically approved, whitewashed adware client that the majority of PCs will come off the line with spyware preinstalled. I suspect that the majority of PC manufacturers already see the computer primarily as an ad delivery device and only secondarily as an end product.
An advertiser does not have the right to install a sign on your property advertising their product without your permission. If we can get a law that states that our computers and web browser are personal property, then they no longer have the right (not that the have that right in the first place) to place a popup when you're browsing without tresspassing. The only reason this will never fly is because a website is property of other people and they choose to allow popups, no different than the neigbor across the street can give them permission to display the billboard on their property wheter you like it or not.
At some point, the line has to be drawn legally. Perhaps the property argument can only be extended as far as it actually modifies your PC, sans Sony Rootkit DRM and other malware. But it would be nice if it can be extended to your web browser, also.
Thanks,
Leabre
Reading that article, methinks I smell a submarine. Anyone else?
Run your machine with a live CD.
Hope they enjoy the short lived view of a barrel in their face.
CLARIA is spyware. claria IS spyware. claria is SPYWARE.
The billboard would only be allowed if the owner first applied for the proper permits, and was erecting it where zoning law allows billboards to be placed (not in residential zones, with limited exceptions for small political and real estate signs). Otherwise, the city fines the owner and forces them to remove it (or has it removed, sends the owner the bill, and sells their property at auction if they don't pay up). If you live in a "Covenant Controlled" neighborhood, the home owners' association will sue to force the billboard's removal, and place liens against the property to pay the HOA's legal fees.
I've never installed Gator eWallet, and never will, because from the very first time I saw an ad for it, I just went "WTF? I'm gonna download software from the internet from some company I've never heard of before, and just put all my passwords in it? You'd have to be a fricken moron to do that."
I didn't *know* it was spyware at the time, but I had to wonder why a company would spend SO MUCH MONEY buying advertising space on hundreds of high-profile websites to get people to download 'free' software. I knew about Free Software (of the BSD/GNU/Linux, etc variety) at the time, and this definitely wasn't any kind of Free Software - it was some *company* that wanted me to download their 'free' software and put all my passwords in it. I couldn't possibly believe they were up to any good.
Personally, I've never felt any compulsion to put my passwords into any automatic login facility. I firmly believe, even when I think it's probably basically trustworthy (like the password manager that is built in to Mozilla/Firefox), I still think it's a bad idea. Maybe someone steals my computer (this should especially be a concern to laptop users) - I don't want to make it trival for them to login to all my website accounts. And there is also the problem, that I've seen all too often in my various user support jobs that people punch a password into the password manager, use it for 2 or 3 months, or a year, and then something happens that causes them to lose all the stored passwords, and they can't remember what the password is to begin with. The best way to remember a password is to enter it every single time you need to use it.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2. 6
cf "A rose is a rose is a rose" by Gertrude Stein.
Also, I am beginning to think that Tourette's is not caused by genetics, but one gets it by being exposed to the internet.
So, get the fucking quotes right next time, dickhead.