Slashdot Mirror
Claria Leaves Adware Business
Alex Stern writes "In an attempt to clean up its tarnished name, Claria
has hired Deutsche Bank to help them sell off the software tools that were previously supported by their adware. Claria says they are unwilling to sell the software for the GAIN ad network, or the data they have collected from their users. Claria is also holding on to their eWallet software that manages passwords. On July 1, Claria will shutdown the GAIN network and inform their users they can either uninstall their software or pay for it. Claria's new business model is 'a new platform designed to provide consumers with a personalized Internet experience.'"
In other words, spying on what you do on the 'net....
So, some other company is going to continue business as usual? I don't care what sort of agreement the new owners have to abide by, there's always a way around such things. For all we know, the new purchaser could be just another entity that's owned by Claria via several layers of legal entities.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
a new platform designed to provide consumers with a personalized Internet experience
So they'll be releasing a tool bar, which will do all of this again and claim other wise?
I like muppets.
So, they are going forward to start a legitimate business based on the profits and contacts they've made in the ad-ware (some may say spy-ware) business? If they really wanted to turn over a new leaf, they'd dissolve the corporation and return all the money to the shareholders.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
'a new platform designed to provide consumers with a personalized Internet experience.' Sounds like they're going to release a browser with inbuilt spyware, like some preconfigured Firefox or something...
Actually a quote in the article does raise an interesting question about that:
On July 1, Claria will shutdown the GAIN network and inform their users they can either uninstall their software or pay for it.
So, does that mean that if you installed ad-supported freeware that uses Claria's spyware to help pay for it, that that's what they're talking about when the say "pay off or shut off?" Does that mean that they're going to trip off whatever mechanism prevents you from using such software after Claria's uninstalled without uninstalling the client software? What about software that uses multiple spyware vendors?
Okay, well honestly, I don't really care that much about people careless enough to use programs that install spyware, but it does beg an interesting question of liability if they attempt to technologically enforce their suggestion that one should either pay or uninstall.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
At first glance, this move on Claria's part seems nonsensical. They are gutting their business model and walking away from a very lucrative source of revenue, all in the name of (more or less) doing the right thing.
Well, here's the rub.
Vista is coming in 2007. Vista is going to have antispyware built directly into the operating system. By 2009, when XP is going to be a minority OS as people's crummy hardware dies (helped along by spyware infestations), there isn't going to be a market for Claria's BS.
They quite simply have no other choice but to cash out what they can and change their profit model. (Of course, this is assuming that the anti-spyware elements of Vista will work at all... but like it or not, MS *does* have a lot of very bright people, and preventing modifications to critical system files *should* be a bit of a no brainer.)
Here's hoping that the party is over.