Actually, while this is generally more accurate than other methods, it is far from accurate. I did an analysis for one of my customers and found that a single user/password was used on over 1200 computers during a single month.
This can happen as people share usernames (whose NYTimes login do YOU use?), frequent services like BugMeNot and people fail to logout when using a shared computer.
Would you like some salt to help that hat go down?
The Jupiter report referenced here shows that 39% of users (yes, ALL users, not just tin-foil hat wearing users) delete their cookies once per month.
Note that stating a deletion rate without a time period is useless (for the mathematically challenged it is like reporting speed in miles or km rather than mph or kph).
Of course, the online advertising industry reacted much as you did to this report.
Atlas did their own report and found - wait for it - exactly the same thing.
While you are correct that much of the cookie deletion occurs periodically rather than by being blocked, this is largely irrelevant since most publishers want to know monthly visitor figures. This is what the advertising industry expects and it is frequently the metric used to generate a lifetime value per visitor metric which is key to the business' revenue forecasting.
Please verify your facts before spreadin FUD. Read the second sentence, second paragraph here. It quite clearly states that FSOs are only available to the domain that originally set them. In other words, it has exactly the same restrictions that cookies and JavaScript have wrt cross domain access.
So, is this the deal that you have with your credit card company, grocery store, movie rental company, etc? My guess is that you don't and yet continue to use these services. Worse yet, these companies have personally identifiable information about you (unlike the anonymous tracking cookies used by advertisers). So, why is your net activity sacrosanct?
Credit card companies have been selling the personal information of their cardholders for years and it has not raised much of a cry. In fact, we PAY THEM for the privilege of carrying a credit card.
Grocery store loyalty programs are basically required unless you want to pay higher prices at the grocery store.
I just don't get why people get so worked up about their online privacy when their real world privacy continues to be sold, "accidentally released" and otherwise trampled and has been for years.
The problem with this argument is that you are generalizing the behavior of a small percentage of offending sites to the entire Internet. Very few of the sites I visit (/., NYTimes, a wide array of development and sys admin sites, etc) display annoying inline ads (I block pop-ups like most everyone else).
Certainly, there are sites that have no standards when it comes to the quality or accuracy of the ads they take. Avoid those sites. Go ahead and block ads from the offensive ad networks (where most of these ads originate).
The majority of sites are responsible and need you to look at their ads in order to stay in business. Don't block their ads or the scenario I described will come to pass.
As to how content developed on the Internet - were you actually around during that period? I was (since 1992) and while a few folks may have put up sites for free out of the goodness of their hearts, most of us were trying to figure out how to use this new, immature medium to protect and extend our businesses. Advertising supported was only one of the models tried, but the only one that ultimately paid the bills.
That would be the part that says you are getting the content for free and it costs money to develop that content. Yes, I know that this is an answer that many people don't want to hear and has been repeated so many times as to border on being trite, but it is the truth, plain and simple.
As to alternative business models, many have been tried and very few have been viable for content providers.
Where we are heading with this kind of "cold-war" attitude towards advertising online is that content providers will be forced to make viewing ads and receiving cookies (a related issue beyond the scope of this thread) part of the Terms of Service for the site. Then, if you block ads, they block you.
Is this really the kind of escalation we want? True, if only a few sites did this, their traffic would simply migrate elsewhere. But what if all the major news providers in the country decided to do this?
Consumers take free access to information online for granted. Perhaps we should re-evaluate the value we are receiving and consider whether viewing a few inline banner ads (I agree that popups are obnoxious and should go away) is really too high a price to pay for ubiquitous, free and easy access to this content.
A couple of clarifications and references to excellent books on black holes:
First, not all stars reach equilibrium. Cepheid variables oscillate between small and dense states and large and diffuse states. This happens because the star cannot reach a steady state balance between pressure and temperature.
Second, it is interesting to note that sun like stars below the Chandrasekhar limit (about 1.4 solar masses) will turn into white dwarfs. The pressure in these stellar remnants is provided not by heat from fusion, but from electron degeneracy pressure (as another poster pointed out). Neutron stars (1.4-3 solar masses) are supported by neutron degeneracy pressure. Beyond this (>3 solar masses) there is no force that can keep the star from collapsing on itself, leading to a black hole.
Let's face it the good ones started out with no ads then decided "well hell, this got popular so let's see if I can't make a little bit of money".
This is simply not true. Many sites were started as a research project by companies that had existing media channels as a hedge against losing business in their (then) current business. Once it was clear that a) there was a way to make money while delivering their content and b) there was erosion in their current channel as more people looked to the internet for information, these companies moved from research project to business.
It is ignorant to believe that any site with more than a few hundred readers can continue to exist without some mechanism to pay the bills. Currently the most consumer friendly way is to show ads, so that someone else (rather than you) will pay for the cost of running the site.
The more people use ad blockers, cookie blockers and other technologies that work against the publishers ability to pay for it's existence, either more aggresive tactics will be required (subscriptions, etc) or the site will have to stop serving their content.
Ideally, we would find a happy middle ground where the ads are sufficiently relevant that you don't want to block them and respect the publishers right to make a buck or two, while the publishers respect your right to privacy and don't spam you with irrelevant and annoying ads.
Pardon me for pointing this out, but you don't know what the hell you are talking about.
I agree that many people apply a very narrow view of what is normal. However, to conjecture based soley upon this observations that the entire psychological community is full of crap (which is, in effect, what you are saying by suggesting that Asperger's is simply a label to describe a different type of normal) is just ignorant.
The important point here is that this is a well described syndrome that can be treated both with behavioral and pharmacological techniques. This site seems to be a pretty good reference to the condition.
Note: I am not a psychologist nor should my opinion be construed as advice. My wife, however, is a therapist who specializes in adolescent psychology, so I am not just making this up as I go.
I have often wished that when I was in middle/high school, my teachers and parents would have emphasized the development of my social skills to the degree that they let did my analytical skills. Instead, I have spent the better part of 20 years developing the ability to work well as part of or leading a team, and socializing with people.
I have done this for one very good reason - I realized very early in my career that brilliant, but socially inept engineers/scientists/programmers always end up reporting to managers of average intelligence that have developed (or were born with) their social skills.
The reality is that business is conducted through social interactions. So, if you are happy to spend the rest of your career reporting to someone that you are certain isn't as smart as you - by all means, do not develop those social skills. However, if you have ambitions to run or start a company, or play more than an consultative role in the running of a company, get a clue soon that your social skills are just as important as your technical skills.
I don't disagree with your intent, but I must also point out that evolution is, in fact, a theory. The reason that no one is working on proving it is that it would be a very difficult, very pointless endeavor. Evolution accurately describes what we see in the fossil record. As theories go, it is spectacularly successful.
Newton's theories of motion are demonstrably wrong. However, they are still used by engineers the world over. Why? Because to the approximation required, they work.
It is not necessary for a theory to be fact to be useful. Nor is it a given that just because a theory is widely accepted and useful, that it is a fact.
I know this is veering even further off topic, but...
The behavior you refer to is attributed by biblical scholars to the polytheistic period of Judaism, where Yahweh Sabaoth was the god of war (think the plagues of Egypt and the exodus). This deity evolved into the one and only God, Yahweh, in post-Babylonian monotheism.
You should read Karen Armstrong's excellent book, A History of God, for a complete historical account.
For those that don't get the reference, Stephen King has a sentient, maniacal train with a bizarre fascination with riddles named "Blaine the Mono" in his Dark Tower series. Blaine is supersonic and makes an 8000 mile trip in about 8 hours.
What makes the DoHS think that anyone that has already ignored warnings from Microsoft, CERT, etc. is suddenly going to decide to patch their systems because DoHS has said they should?
"Oh, it's a threat to national security? Well that DOES give me a good reason to apply that patch!"
> I think Yahoo needs to decide if it wants to be a portal or a search engine, because it's trying to be a one-stop-shop.
I think you miss the point of diversification. Yahoo doesn't target the techno-literate as a primary customer base. If you ask your mother or uncle where they get their information, though, chances are good that Yahoo is still their home page. Consequently, it makes perfect sense for them to try to be "everything for everybody", even if they aren't the best at any of them.
[snip]
> Is ad revenue
really that big for these companies?
Yes. Take a look at this. Yahoo reported almost $200MM in ad related revenue in 1Q03. Notice also, that they attribute some of that (although they don't say how much) to a deal with Overture for paid listings. My take is that Yahoo did this because it is cheaper in the long run to assimilate the partner than to continue to pay them a slice of your profit year after year. On top of this, it gives them some control over competitors that currently use Overture.
As I have stated here before, to be considered "journalism", trust of the source is a required characteristic. Rheingold himself makes this point:
"Journalism, if it is to deserve the name, is not about the quality of the camera, but about the journalist's intuition, integrity, courage, inquisitiveness, analytic and expressive capabilities, and above all, the trust the journalist has earned among readers."
Whether we call it journalism or not, we all participate in communities of trusted information. We talk with our friends and family about politics, co-workers about innovations in technology, etc. Who we choose to believe or listen to within these groups is based upon how much we trust the other party. The so-called democratization of journalism is nothing more than the globalization of the chat around the water-cooler.
Improvements in technology will not improve the quality of the content (in fact, it will probably bias it towards the prurient and salacious), but it does increase the pool of potential reporters. While we will undoubtedly see the rise of individuals that draw a devoted gathering (ala Matt Drudge), the "traditional" media sources will continue to be important as reliable, trusted sources.
Another thought - perhaps instead of a disk, use a rotating bowl. Then the centripetal force would act to press you to the side (i.e., keep your feet on the floor) as you walk down the side of the bowl. This is kind of like those amusement park rides where they get you spinng fast and then drop the floor out from beneath you.
It seems to me that a better solution would be to have rotating disks at transistion points along the route. This way people could step onto the outer edge of the disk (where the outer angular velocity equals the linear velocity of the belt). They could walk into the center (where the angular velocity is much lower) and then step off into the center hole.
Of course, the problem with this is that the disk would need to be enormously large to make the centripetal force reasonable.
A quick calculation shows that acceleration on the outer edge of a 1000m radius disk that has a angular velocity of 100km/hr is ~130m/s^2. Unfortunately, that is ~13g! To get that down to manageable forces, the disk would need to be at least 10K m in radius (13m/s^2 or ~1.4g).
Since this is just a back of the envelope type of calculation anyway, pehaps someone has a better idea of reducing the forces?
I think that this is an excellent idea, but the fundamental problem with all of this is that libraries are not well-funded. This is why the law is an issue at all, since the law threatens that the library will lose it's federal funding if it doesn't comply.
Consequently, it is safe to assume (particularly for small, suburban or rural libraries) that they do not have the resources or technical expertise to implement this in a way that guarantees that a local christian conservative activist doesn't come along and call for the library to lose it's funding because Johnny knows more about computers than the librarian and managed to glipmse a couple of nipples before being chased off.
Perhaps the/. community could volunteer some of their time at their own local library, offering to help configure the machines in such a way to ease their burden while still complying with CIPA. I am sure that libraries everywhere would welcome the offer of a little free computer consulting.
Then why do I still see Gator being delivered to end-users via drive-by downloads, then? Granted, they clicked yes on a freaking dialog, but if you polled users, you'd find the vast majority of them did so by mistake.
I have no sympathy for users who click "Yes" to install anything without first understanding what they are agreeing to. This is true offline as well as online.
Secondly, I think you are assuming too much in stating that the vast majority did so by mistake. Most people are lazy, they are not stupid. Simply put, they don't care one way or the other. If they do care, it is a simple matter of uninstalling the application.
I believe that Gator also stopped this practice (although I could be wrong about this) some time ago. Note that the CNet article you reference is more than 12 months old. Try reading their statements regarding what and how they collect information (http://www.gatoradvertisinginformationnetwork.com/help/gainfaq.html).
Re:Gator by Choice, WTF?
on
Gator Examined
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
OK, I am sorry, but this is just willful ignorance. I know several people that use Gator on purpose (in fact, they *love* it). From my admittedly small survey, non-technical Internet users do not place the same stigma on Gator that we in the technical community do.
Personally, I avoid Gator software as I find the pop-ups (or unders) extremely annoying as many in the/. community do as well. However, to generalize from the relatively homogeneous and specialized population that reads/. to the entire Internet user population is completely unreasonable.
The fact that there are alternatives to Gator for password management is also irrelevant as the whole idea of a marketplace is that there be a number of competing products and that consumers choose the solution they like best. Clearly, enough people are choosing Gator's software to make it financially viable for Gator to stay in business.
Finally, I think it is inappropriate to classify Gator as "spyware" any longer. I challenge anyone to find an instance where Gator installs itself surreptitiously on a users browser any longer. Whenever I come across Gator, I have been very clearly asked to allow it to install and have been given the option to uninstall (by uninstalling the partner application) with little difficulty. While I take issue with some of Gator's early business practices, I applaud them for finding a viable ad supported business model in such dismal economic times.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, while this is generally more accurate than other methods, it is far from accurate. I did an analysis for one of my customers and found that a single user/password was used on over 1200 computers during a single month.
This can happen as people share usernames (whose NYTimes login do YOU use?), frequent services like BugMeNot and people fail to logout when using a shared computer.
Would you like some salt to help that hat go down?
The Jupiter report referenced here shows that 39% of users (yes, ALL users, not just tin-foil hat wearing users) delete their cookies once per month.
Note that stating a deletion rate without a time period is useless (for the mathematically challenged it is like reporting speed in miles or km rather than mph or kph).
Of course, the online advertising industry reacted much as you did to this report.
Atlas did their own report and found - wait for it - exactly the same thing.
While you are correct that much of the cookie deletion occurs periodically rather than by being blocked, this is largely irrelevant since most publishers want to know monthly visitor figures. This is what the advertising industry expects and it is frequently the metric used to generate a lifetime value per visitor metric which is key to the business' revenue forecasting.
Please verify your facts before spreadin FUD. Read the second sentence, second paragraph here. It quite clearly states that FSOs are only available to the domain that originally set them. In other words, it has exactly the same restrictions that cookies and JavaScript have wrt cross domain access.
So, is this the deal that you have with your credit card company, grocery store, movie rental company, etc? My guess is that you don't and yet continue to use these services. Worse yet, these companies have personally identifiable information about you (unlike the anonymous tracking cookies used by advertisers). So, why is your net activity sacrosanct?
Credit card companies have been selling the personal information of their cardholders for years and it has not raised much of a cry. In fact, we PAY THEM for the privilege of carrying a credit card.
Grocery store loyalty programs are basically required unless you want to pay higher prices at the grocery store.
I just don't get why people get so worked up about their online privacy when their real world privacy continues to be sold, "accidentally released" and otherwise trampled and has been for years.
The problem with this argument is that you are generalizing the behavior of a small percentage of offending sites to the entire Internet. Very few of the sites I visit (/., NYTimes, a wide array of development and sys admin sites, etc) display annoying inline ads (I block pop-ups like most everyone else).
Certainly, there are sites that have no standards when it comes to the quality or accuracy of the ads they take. Avoid those sites. Go ahead and block ads from the offensive ad networks (where most of these ads originate).
The majority of sites are responsible and need you to look at their ads in order to stay in business. Don't block their ads or the scenario I described will come to pass.
As to how content developed on the Internet - were you actually around during that period? I was (since 1992) and while a few folks may have put up sites for free out of the goodness of their hearts, most of us were trying to figure out how to use this new, immature medium to protect and extend our businesses. Advertising supported was only one of the models tried, but the only one that ultimately paid the bills.
That would be the part that says you are getting the content for free and it costs money to develop that content. Yes, I know that this is an answer that many people don't want to hear and has been repeated so many times as to border on being trite, but it is the truth, plain and simple.
As to alternative business models, many have been tried and very few have been viable for content providers.
Where we are heading with this kind of "cold-war" attitude towards advertising online is that content providers will be forced to make viewing ads and receiving cookies (a related issue beyond the scope of this thread) part of the Terms of Service for the site. Then, if you block ads, they block you.
Is this really the kind of escalation we want? True, if only a few sites did this, their traffic would simply migrate elsewhere. But what if all the major news providers in the country decided to do this?
Consumers take free access to information online for granted. Perhaps we should re-evaluate the value we are receiving and consider whether viewing a few inline banner ads (I agree that popups are obnoxious and should go away) is really too high a price to pay for ubiquitous, free and easy access to this content.
No - it is pronounced "ex els". Microsoft's attorneys have already been in contact with them regarding trademark infringment.
Excellent post!
A couple of clarifications and references to excellent books on black holes:
First, not all stars reach equilibrium. Cepheid variables oscillate between small and dense states and large and diffuse states. This happens because the star cannot reach a steady state balance between pressure and temperature.
Second, it is interesting to note that sun like stars below the Chandrasekhar limit (about 1.4 solar masses) will turn into white dwarfs. The pressure in these stellar remnants is provided not by heat from fusion, but from electron degeneracy pressure (as another poster pointed out). Neutron stars (1.4-3 solar masses) are supported by neutron degeneracy pressure. Beyond this (>3 solar masses) there is no force that can keep the star from collapsing on itself, leading to a black hole.
Two excellent books on black holes are:
Black Holes by J-P Luminet
Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne
Let's face it the good ones started out with no ads then decided "well hell, this got popular so let's see if I can't make a little bit of money".
This is simply not true. Many sites were started as a research project by companies that had existing media channels as a hedge against losing business in their (then) current business. Once it was clear that a) there was a way to make money while delivering their content and b) there was erosion in their current channel as more people looked to the internet for information, these companies moved from research project to business.
It is ignorant to believe that any site with more than a few hundred readers can continue to exist without some mechanism to pay the bills. Currently the most consumer friendly way is to show ads, so that someone else (rather than you) will pay for the cost of running the site.
The more people use ad blockers, cookie blockers and other technologies that work against the publishers ability to pay for it's existence, either more aggresive tactics will be required (subscriptions, etc) or the site will have to stop serving their content.
Ideally, we would find a happy middle ground where the ads are sufficiently relevant that you don't want to block them and respect the publishers right to make a buck or two, while the publishers respect your right to privacy and don't spam you with irrelevant and annoying ads.
Linux Serves An Ace At Wimbledon?
Pardon me for pointing this out, but you don't know what the hell you are talking about.
I agree that many people apply a very narrow view of what is normal. However, to conjecture based soley upon this observations that the entire psychological community is full of crap (which is, in effect, what you are saying by suggesting that Asperger's is simply a label to describe a different type of normal) is just ignorant.
The important point here is that this is a well described syndrome that can be treated both with behavioral and pharmacological techniques. This site seems to be a pretty good reference to the condition.
Note: I am not a psychologist nor should my opinion be construed as advice. My wife, however, is a therapist who specializes in adolescent psychology, so I am not just making this up as I go.
I have often wished that when I was in middle/high school, my teachers and parents would have emphasized the development of my social skills to the degree that they let did my analytical skills. Instead, I have spent the better part of 20 years developing the ability to work well as part of or leading a team, and socializing with people.
I have done this for one very good reason - I realized very early in my career that brilliant, but socially inept engineers/scientists/programmers always end up reporting to managers of average intelligence that have developed (or were born with) their social skills.
The reality is that business is conducted through social interactions. So, if you are happy to spend the rest of your career reporting to someone that you are certain isn't as smart as you - by all means, do not develop those social skills. However, if you have ambitions to run or start a company, or play more than an consultative role in the running of a company, get a clue soon that your social skills are just as important as your technical skills.
I don't disagree with your intent, but I must also point out that evolution is, in fact, a theory. The reason that no one is working on proving it is that it would be a very difficult, very pointless endeavor. Evolution accurately describes what we see in the fossil record. As theories go, it is spectacularly successful.
Newton's theories of motion are demonstrably wrong. However, they are still used by engineers the world over. Why? Because to the approximation required, they work.
It is not necessary for a theory to be fact to be useful. Nor is it a given that just because a theory is widely accepted and useful, that it is a fact.
I know this is veering even further off topic, but...
The behavior you refer to is attributed by biblical scholars to the polytheistic period of Judaism, where Yahweh Sabaoth was the god of war (think the plagues of Egypt and the exodus). This deity evolved into the one and only God, Yahweh, in post-Babylonian monotheism.
You should read Karen Armstrong's excellent book, A History of God, for a complete historical account.
For those that don't get the reference, Stephen King has a sentient, maniacal train with a bizarre fascination with riddles named "Blaine the Mono" in his Dark Tower series. Blaine is supersonic and makes an 8000 mile trip in about 8 hours.
Actually, the part that astonishes me, is that within his category (Physics), he was eaten by the following project:
PH029 Is Eating Blueberry Pie Bad for You?
Oops, did I say "eaten"? I meant beaten.
What makes the DoHS think that anyone that has already ignored warnings from Microsoft, CERT, etc. is suddenly going to decide to patch their systems because DoHS has said they should?
"Oh, it's a threat to national security? Well that DOES give me a good reason to apply that patch!"
> I think Yahoo needs to decide if it wants to be a portal or a search engine, because it's trying to be a one-stop-shop.
I think you miss the point of diversification. Yahoo doesn't target the techno-literate as a primary customer base. If you ask your mother or uncle where they get their information, though, chances are good that Yahoo is still their home page. Consequently, it makes perfect sense for them to try to be "everything for everybody", even if they aren't the best at any of them.
[snip]
> Is ad revenue really that big for these companies?
Yes. Take a look at this. Yahoo reported almost $200MM in ad related revenue in 1Q03. Notice also, that they attribute some of that (although they don't say how much) to a deal with Overture for paid listings. My take is that Yahoo did this because it is cheaper in the long run to assimilate the partner than to continue to pay them a slice of your profit year after year. On top of this, it gives them some control over competitors that currently use Overture.
This looks to be a shrewd business move to me.
As I have stated here before, to be considered "journalism", trust of the source is a required characteristic. Rheingold himself makes this point:
"Journalism, if it is to deserve the name, is not about the quality of the camera, but about the journalist's intuition, integrity, courage, inquisitiveness, analytic and expressive capabilities, and above all, the trust the journalist has earned among readers."
Whether we call it journalism or not, we all participate in communities of trusted information. We talk with our friends and family about politics, co-workers about innovations in technology, etc. Who we choose to believe or listen to within these groups is based upon how much we trust the other party. The so-called democratization of journalism is nothing more than the globalization of the chat around the water-cooler.
Improvements in technology will not improve the quality of the content (in fact, it will probably bias it towards the prurient and salacious), but it does increase the pool of potential reporters. While we will undoubtedly see the rise of individuals that draw a devoted gathering (ala Matt Drudge), the "traditional" media sources will continue to be important as reliable, trusted sources.
Another thought - perhaps instead of a disk, use a rotating bowl. Then the centripetal force would act to press you to the side (i.e., keep your feet on the floor) as you walk down the side of the bowl. This is kind of like those amusement park rides where they get you spinng fast and then drop the floor out from beneath you.
It seems to me that a better solution would be to have rotating disks at transistion points along the route. This way people could step onto the outer edge of the disk (where the outer angular velocity equals the linear velocity of the belt). They could walk into the center (where the angular velocity is much lower) and then step off into the center hole.
Of course, the problem with this is that the disk would need to be enormously large to make the centripetal force reasonable.
A quick calculation shows that acceleration on the outer edge of a 1000m radius disk that has a angular velocity of 100km/hr is ~130m/s^2. Unfortunately, that is ~13g! To get that down to manageable forces, the disk would need to be at least 10K m in radius (13m/s^2 or ~1.4g).
Since this is just a back of the envelope type of calculation anyway, pehaps someone has a better idea of reducing the forces?
I think that this is an excellent idea, but the fundamental problem with all of this is that libraries are not well-funded. This is why the law is an issue at all, since the law threatens that the library will lose it's federal funding if it doesn't comply.
/. community could volunteer some of their time at their own local library, offering to help configure the machines in such a way to ease their burden while still complying with CIPA. I am sure that libraries everywhere would welcome the offer of a little free computer consulting.
Consequently, it is safe to assume (particularly for small, suburban or rural libraries) that they do not have the resources or technical expertise to implement this in a way that guarantees that a local christian conservative activist doesn't come along and call for the library to lose it's funding because Johnny knows more about computers than the librarian and managed to glipmse a couple of nipples before being chased off.
Perhaps the
Gator does not collect personal information. And even if they did, they couldn't collect anything that you didn't give them.
Adware is a much better term as it reflects what they do. Spyware implies that the code was installed without the users consent.
Then why do I still see Gator being delivered to end-users via drive-by downloads, then? Granted, they clicked yes on a freaking dialog, but if you polled users, you'd find the vast majority of them did so by mistake.
m /help/gainfaq.html).
I have no sympathy for users who click "Yes" to install anything without first understanding what they are agreeing to. This is true offline as well as online.
Secondly, I think you are assuming too much in stating that the vast majority did so by mistake. Most people are lazy, they are not stupid. Simply put, they don't care one way or the other. If they do care, it is a simple matter of uninstalling the application.
I believe that Gator also stopped this practice (although I could be wrong about this) some time ago. Note that the CNet article you reference is more than 12 months old. Try reading their statements regarding what and how they collect information (http://www.gatoradvertisinginformationnetwork.co
OK, I am sorry, but this is just willful ignorance. I know several people that use Gator on purpose (in fact, they *love* it). From my admittedly small survey, non-technical Internet users do not place the same stigma on Gator that we in the technical community do.
/. community do as well. However, to generalize from the relatively homogeneous and specialized population that reads /. to the entire Internet user population is completely unreasonable.
Personally, I avoid Gator software as I find the pop-ups (or unders) extremely annoying as many in the
The fact that there are alternatives to Gator for password management is also irrelevant as the whole idea of a marketplace is that there be a number of competing products and that consumers choose the solution they like best. Clearly, enough people are choosing Gator's software to make it financially viable for Gator to stay in business.
Finally, I think it is inappropriate to classify Gator as "spyware" any longer. I challenge anyone to find an instance where Gator installs itself surreptitiously on a users browser any longer. Whenever I come across Gator, I have been very clearly asked to allow it to install and have been given the option to uninstall (by uninstalling the partner application) with little difficulty. While I take issue with some of Gator's early business practices, I applaud them for finding a viable ad supported business model in such dismal economic times.