A Gator By Any Other Name 373
MFS! writes "CNet reports that Gator, everyone's favorite ad software, is changing its name to Claria. Gator's CEO says "We feel that the Claria Corporation name will allow us to better communicate the expanding breadth of offerings that we provide to consumers and advertisers." He fails to mention what "Claria" is supposed to mean or how it accomplishes this goal, but it seems that the name change may be no more than an attempt to distance the company from a moniker which has become involved in allegations of spyware."
Re:Translation (Score:3, Interesting)
I build PCs for friends and family occasionally and now I will need to update the HOSTS file on all of them or this shit will get reinstalled.
I can't believe that open-source isn't addressing this issue and that we will have to wait for Microsoft to come up with a *real* solution (shudder). Is this the only use for trusted computing?
Seriously, there are some freeware programs out there but they are much too complex for users who don't know whether to click YES or NO when prompted with blatant spyware. If someone could just come up with a simple auto-loading, auto-updating piece of software that simply made these decisions for the user, we wouldn't be here today.
I'm surprised . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
If I were in the life insurance business you'd better believe I wouldn't want my name associated with something so malicious as spyware.
I just mailed claria.co.uk the headphone company (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel it is the least we can do to help some small company which will no doubt have to change it's name because of all this.
It's sad really. Much is ill in the world.
Re:The real question is: (Score:5, Interesting)
Gator is basically just malware like any other virus or trojan. Just because a company produces it and claims it has a valid purpose doesn't make it any less evil. The CDC started claiming BackOrifice2k was a remote administration tool, but that didn't make it any less frustrating to find someone had compromised your system and installed it on there without your knowledge to take control of your machine.
Everyone whose computer I have ever found Gator (and tons of other spyware) on has had no idea what it does or how they installed it. They click on some link (these are teenagers for example.. they're click happy) and suddenly they have a wonderful new time syncing app or a datebook! Great right? Well, until their computer eventually slows to a halt and starts crashing, personal information is spewed out across the Internet without their consent, and/or their computer is used as some kind of distributed cracking node without their knowledge. McAfee, Symantec and others need to be forced to accept that malware like Gator IS a virus and needs to be cleaned from a system. We shouldn't have to use yet another malware cleaner like Adaware to get rid of it. If Gator and other spyware made it VERY clear they were installed and cooperated 100% with the add/remove programs in Win2k to completely remove themselves and ALL their components when you remove them then I wouldn't have such a huge issue with shareware software installing it. It's an annoyance at that point, but easily remedied like having an AOL icon created on your desktop.
The real problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Another casualty is performance: these spyware programs arent just tracking your usage and pushing advertising, they are consuming finite computer resources in the form of processing power, networking bandwidth, and memory space.
I have seen firsthand what all of these programs do to a corporate environment, and it is just as bad (if not worse) than a virus. The difference between a virus and spyware is that the former can kill or corrupt your computer, while the latter weakens and sufficates it.
Since these computers have no protection against the spyware, this causes many effects- all of which bleed resources from the company.
1) degraded computer performance: the worker now has to work slower
2) increased network bandwidth consumtion: this degrades network performance for the entire company, as well as again consuming an ever-growning share of a finite resource (WAN bandwidth)
3) increased computer support: the time and expense involved in having somebody diagnose and fix the problem effecting the client computer(s)
Once you start trying impliment a solution, a company is forced to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours planning and implimenting a solution to stop all the spyware.
I would encourage companies to start taking legal action against these spyware companies. What they are doing is every bit as bad and immoral as releasing computer viruses into the wild.
Overflow them! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like Palladium (Score:5, Interesting)
"Man, this Total Information Awareness idea of ours seems to be upsetting those pesky privacy advocates. I know, we'll call it Terrorism Information Awareness, then if the privacy advocates cry foul we can call them unpatriotic and lock them up at Guantanamo." - John Poindexter.
Face it people, when a company/organisation changes the name of something to obfuscate it's true intentions, you know it's a bad thing.
I say play them at their own game. Just call spyware "Clariaware" from now on.
Quizo69
Re:lets publically deride the "Claria" name too (Score:2, Interesting)
Get your spyware [claria.com] here. One-stop shopping for all your pop-up [claria.com] and pop-under [claria.com] needs.
(the theory is, if enough people link the word spyware [claria.com] to Claria's site, it'll become an 'above the fold' first page hit for the search term on Google.)
Let's fsck up their rebranding effort!
DO NOT look at laser with remaining good eye (Score:2, Interesting)
User Awareness is Key (Score:2, Interesting)
We believe that the only solution to this problem is one of awareness. When a user sees a Gator Active X, it must be eventually engrained into their heads to click NO. Gator is indeed clever, because by changing names, it makes an awareness campaign more difficult and also expensive. By analyzing the recent moves, it seems that Claria is comprised of three organizations:
GAIN Publishing - This organization contains the software packages eWallet, Precision Time, Date Manager, and Weatherscope, and also the GAIN network. GAIN Publishing is also responsible for selling the advertising on the GAIN Network. Note: It seems that recently Gator/Claria has changed the name on their Active X certificates from Gator Inc to GAIN Publishing.
Search Scout - Search Scout is a product of their relationship with Overture. This organization is responsible for managing the Overture relationship, and also determining in which situations Search Scout will over ride the user's browsing experience. Note: We have recently discovered that Search Scout pops up not only when Google or other web searches but on specific sites. For example, I was listening to Gateway's earnings conference call, and Search Scout popped a full page window, with the title "Looking to purchase a computer?".
Feedback Research - It seems that this is a new organization. It seems that the purpose of this organization is to run targetted surveys to users of the GAIN network. We recently have found (and have screen shots) of a survey that Feedback Research is running to users of the Google Toolbar.
Claria is a smart company. Their name change is good evidence that they are trying to keep ahead of the rising anti Gator sentiment on the internet. So we just need to be smarter. Here are a few ideas to hopefully spur more awareness:
1. Companies UNITE. One thing that I have learned from slash dot is that the impact on company's productivity and expenses is more measurable than to individual consumers.
2. Know the beast - I hate to say this. But I want to encourage everyone to install Gator on your PC to know what it is doing. It is clear that Gator/Claria is constantly changing its tactics to its environment, and the more eyes watching their behaviour the better. Of course, uninstall the software before it gets to be too aggravating.
3. Tell everyone you know - No one is protected against Gator. It can show up on anyone's computer at any time. So everyone needs to know about Gator.
4. Tell your company not to advertise with Gator and/or Overture.
Re:Gator is evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Try something like privoxy, which will replace those images with a 1x1 transparent image, so that there's no disruption in the page layout. And it will be a HELL of a lot more effective at blocking ads and annoyances than playing whackamole with a stupid list of static hostnames in some file. Can you say "regular expressions"?