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Going From Gator to Claria

Posted by Zonk on from the downward-spiral dept.

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.

3 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. The problem is, nobody bothered to ask users by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  2. Won what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Claria / Google by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The day that Google sells my info to bombard me with pop-ups and silent software installs is the day that I'll treat them like Gator. In the meantime, I'll treat them like Google.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.