Microsoft In Talks To Buy Claria

axonis writes "For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy Claria, an adware marketer formerly called Gator, and best known for its pop-up ads and software that tracks people visiting Web sites. The offer price on the table as recently as Wednesday was $500 million. One person briefed on the deal said there was opposition within Microsoft to the acquisition. Analysts said Microsoft would probably be most interested in the long-term potential of Claria's personalization software rather than its pop-up ads."

Antispyware, and now this?

[bheer]

Microsofts Antispyware's cred just took a dive for no fault of its own. Pity, since Giant (which it was before MS purchased it) was one of the better antispyware apps.

Encouragement

[Mark_Uplanguage]

Yes, let's reward these companies for their abuses of the internet. 500 million reasons to be unscrupulous in business. This is going to make spyware/adware that much worse. Yea, let's here it for best business practices!!! /rant

Opposition from within Microsoft

[Sketch]

> One person briefed on the deal said there was opposition within Microsoft to the acquisition.

Would that be from the AntiSpyware group? ;)

I wonder....

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I wonder if this buyout is just a way for Microsoft to kill off a whole slew of spyware? Seems to me that 500 million is a fair price to rid us of Claria's crap.

Gotta be a story plant

[Chairboy]

This rumor defies logic. By acquiring a spyware maker, no matter whether or not they intend to use the spyware themselves, Microsoft would seriously endanger their efforts to gain credibility among technical users.

Claria is 'fruit of the poisoned tree'.

Typically, acquisitions like this are done because it's cheaper to buy target company A then it is to develop a solution internally, and any competent business manager should be taking into account the 'cost' of associating Microsoft with a company with Claria's history.

I would guess that the story is a plant, and that someone fell for it. Was the purpose of the plant to expose leakers? Or was it a well orchestrated prank? Either way, it seems contra-indicated for good business, and successful business is Microsoft's #1 product.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:$500 Million!

[bigberk]

Marketing value is worth a lot. People still haven't caught on that Google's largest asset is the huge marketing knowledge they have access to both directly and indirectly (searches); the text ads are cute but not the main show. You'll see.

Gator name change

[nytmare]

Almost two years ago Gator changed their name to Claria in an attempt to distance themselves from their scummy reputation. It's encouraging that the media still refers to Claria/Gator by both names -- it keeps the name association going and lets people know exactly who they're dealing with.

Let me give you a little history lesson

[Rogerborg]

Number of times in the entire history of the world that buying off thugs has ever made them go away: 0

Re:Encouragement

[Art_Vandelai]

Flamebait?? This comment is insightful. Because of this action, how many more asshats out there will start up spy-shit tracker cookie uninstallable scumware companies in hopes of striking it rich?

Re:Let me give you a little history lesson

[MindStalker]

There is a difference between buying off thugs and buying your way into their leadership position. Doesn't mean they won't jump ship and become thugs somewhere else though.

Re:I thought that said CHINA!

[rpozz]

What better way to shut down a company that produces so much spyware and other unwanted adds than to buy them.

Sends out the wrong sort of message when they buy them for $500 million though.

Re:What to do with them?

[saintp]

I wonder which way this will effect the MS reputation?

Here, I'll write the first line of their press release for them: "Microsoft (MSFT) has spent over half a billion dollars this year fighting spyware,...."

Re:I thought that said CHINA!

[Anonymous Coward]

What better way to shut down a company that produces so much spyware and other unwanted adds than to buy them.

I hate unwanted ADDs, almost as much as I hate unwated SUBs.

Of course unwanted DIVs are the worst.

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Both sides of the pop-up problem

[Progman3K]

If Microsoft buys Claria, they'll effectively be holding both sides of the pop-up/under problem.

Maybe they'll be able to develop a pop-over/under technology that CAN'T be blocked by browsers by controlling both sides.

Re:Microsoft re-establishes position in global mar

[ScentCone]

Well, you're right, of course. Search engines, including MSN and Google, should always operate at a loss, preferrably until they go out of business. And if they do decide to do something as tasteless as run side-bar ads to pay for what everyone uses millions of times a day, they certainly shouldn't use any sort of technology to make those ads actually relevent or attractive to the people that the paying advertisers want to reach. Definately not. I know that the almighty, completely benign Google will surely lead the way in first abandoning any sort of contextual/visitor awareness in their ads, and then stop running them altogether and drain their shareholders' money until it all dries up and goes away.

Wait... I've got an idea. If you don't like MS, don't use their free search engine, and don't patronize the thousands of merchants and other entities that choose to advertise there. Gosh, that was complicated.

Re:Antispyware, and now this?

[kawika]

If the deal went through, I am sure that Microsoft would clean up any issues with Claria's distribution practices. After all, they have Windows Update and don't need no steenkin' drive-by downloads. My concern would be with the data that Claria has collected so far. They have the seventh largest data warehouse of "consumer behavior"; it's 12 terabytes [cio.com] and growing.

Claria's already said that they are moving towards [strategiy.com] an Adwords-style advertising network, and this is what Microsoft wants. They are planning to buy inventory from big web sites in bulk, then display ads in that space based on their monitoring of where the user has been and what they bought. The genius of this is that it turns web publishers from enemies into customers. The only losers are the users.

What better way? Sue 'em...

[Simonetta]

These sleazy pop-up ad makers are a public nuisance. They are a major source of pollution in the internet experience. Microsoft should have just bullied them out of the way.

The previous poster was right about making have these shitheads in the kernel. Microsoft would never pay $500 million to buy a company in order to get them to stop harassing people. It's most likely that Microsoft is buying this technology to constantly check if the individual copy of Windows on a PC is registered with them. If not (or if the registration number doesn't match the microprocessor ID number secretly included in the registration process), then the pop-up message routines embedded in the Windows kernel will incessantly blast the user to transfer the full list price from their checking account to Microsoft.
But, like all Microsoft stuff, it won't work completely right and even after paying, the poor schmucks will continue to be blasted with annoying messages. Microsoft will charge them a service fee for problem solving, an activation fee, a supplemental fee for having used an unregistered copy of windows, a fee for having been born, etc...
This could be good for Linux if Microsoft if Gates finally makes good on his famous 1977 letter of intent to stop people from using software without paying him. People use Windows because it is easy, more-or-less, and because Linux is such a pain in the ass to work with due to the inability of its designers to transcend their 'computer priesthood' mentality. I realize that comment will get the message marked as a troll, but, beautiful slashdaughters, it's so true.
But if Microsoft decides to use this new technology to harass the hell out of people, then they will come to Linux, kicking and cursing the whole way, and they will provide the major boost and surge in popularity that will break the Microsoft monopoly.

Re:What better way? Sue 'em...

[rizzo420]

actually, i see no problem with embedding something into the windows kernel to check if it's a legal copy. you can't get security patches for XP unless you have a legal copy, so what's the point of having it if you're susceptible to most of that crap that's floating around?

while MS wouldn't pay that much to stop them from harassing people, they would pay that much to get the code to the software to make their anti-spyware solution the best. they would also pay that much to get the data that claria has collected in order to make their own web stuff better. think about all the browsing habits claria has collected from people (the average person, in fact). they could easily use that data to help push them ahead of google.