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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
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.
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
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
Luckily I know of some free apps you can download that will make your online viewing of Wired even more fulfilling! Don't delay, download today!!!!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
...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.
[bunnies for Allah]
Is there any chance I can get that on a T-shirt?
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.
Pirana's are honest creatures. They never have claimed they just want to give you a massage.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
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
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> 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."
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> 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!
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
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.