Gator changes name

[supafly]

Caution:
The Gator company (know for it's spyware) changed it's name to Claria.
You are all warned, don't install anything and boycot this bastards.

See the link for website:
http://www.claria.com/

[God of Thunder]

Noted, thanks.

[Intangible]

Thanks, I don't go installing what I don't know though :P

Though, my sister will probably call me about this...

[SecretMethod70]

Dear Claria,

Claria is Spyware, you fuckers. Spyware. Spyware. Spyware.

Please send me a nastygram. My career is stalled, and I could really use the publicity.

Thanks go to Wil Wheaton for his original Gator is spyware message

Thanks for the warning.

[Astrocloud]

Windows XP users:

Open "Control Panel"
Select "Internet Options" and open it
Select the "Security Marquee/Tab"
Select "Restricted Sites" (Big Red Button)
Click "Sites" (below selection buttons)

In the text window that says "Add this Web site to the zone"
Type (or highlight and paste):

http://www.claria.com

Click "Add"

Click "OK"

Now Curse Gator's name.

[b1naryb0r1s]

this information is worth everyone knowing about, so i'm going to make sure this topic stays 'bumped' up for a bit. Thanks for the update and death to spyware.

[Hrothgar]

This is useful to people who are "install happy" and install things without reading the fine print.

[MSD]

I'm sticking this at the top for the next few days. I'll give it a week so that everyone sees it.

[Sunrise]

Claria!? It sounds like an STD. I guess it's somewhat equivalent to one.

[BoCo]

Thanks for the warning!

[SonicRL]

Damn... Thanks for the warning O_o''

[Latch]

This is great. Thanks.

[hu-man]

Thanks for the heads-up. Gator sucks.

[Artsemis]

Thanks I hadn't heard about this yet.

[skier]

i think we will discover that gator has now sponsored some relatively innocuous popular online service under their new alias claria.

Always read the fine print.

[Shokan]

Thanks, hadn't heard about this til now.

[keif]

good lookin out

[Frowning Budah]

Probably had to change their names cause everyone was getting wise to Gator. Thanks for the warning.

[bundy]

thanks heaps for the warning.

one day this world will rise up and swallow those Gator/Claria wankers.

we have no need for them, lets vote them off earth.

[Mr.Deflok]

GET FUCKED GATOR

[yellowgowild]

They give their address on the website, are they crazy? Someone might go in there with a high power fully automatic machine gun and kill everyone of those bastards as they sit in their cubicles.
The address just in case.....

Claria Corporation
2000 Bridge Parkway, Suite 100
Redwood City, CA 94065

[Addiction]

Great. Now it looks all nice and legit on the frontpage.

Fuckers.

[Blistex]

Gator is the DEVIL!!!!

Whenever I run Adaware it always finds Gain software, and the strange thing is that I never hit yes to anything on the net! The stuff is embedded into everyday software like DivX and such.

[dj_simo]

Thanks man - this is VERY helpful - BOYCOTT..BOYCOTT
*attempts cheap chanting*

-SImo

[floonine]

Thanks for the warning, Glaritor sucks

[sub zero]

woo good to know

[numist]

If Im not mistaken, Claria Corp has filed a lawsuit against someone for libel and slander after the defendant in question called their GAIN product "spyware".

libel? slander? comon sense!

ad-aware detects 46 entries that GAIN adds to your computer that is considered adware or spyware.

Of those, they are classified as "Data Miners" in otherwords, they track and record data (where you browse, what you do, etc) in order to give you ads that ables their customers (the people who make the ads and use GAIN as a marketing tool) to target you more efficiently. The point is, it SPIES on your web usage. That is spyware.

not spyware, eh? good luck arguing your case.
Corporate assraping sons of bitches....

oops, I didnt say that...

[dragon2fire]

hey thanks for the heads up

i will tell the idiots that use this computer about this so that gator does not get installed again


i hate computer morons

[arael]

gator is the devil!!!

[Blistex]

For those of you that havn't used Ad-aware here is a DL link.

Ad-aware Download: @ Download.com

This is one of the first programs that I install whenever I format my system. It's also in my schedualed tasks, every sunday morning it scans my computer to check for new spyware crap.

Remember to click "check for updates" to make sure that it's able to detect and destroy all the newest spyware.

p.s. also here is a link to www.antivirus.com there is a free online scan tool that can detect any new virus. Since I never bother installing anti-virus progs this is #2 on my favorites list after TFP.

[Astrocloud]

http://news.com.com/Firm+formerly+kn...tml?tag=st.num

Firm formerly known as Gator looks for credibility
Published: February 14, 2005, 9:00 PM PST
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com



Claria, aka Gator, an adware maker that online publishers once called a "parasite," is now seeking their favor to build a massive Web advertising network to display ads based on Web surfers' behaviors.

The privately held company, which postponed its public offering last year, is launching a new marketing division and advertising service to migrate from hawking its signature pop-up advertisements to selling behaviorally targeted display ads. If it has its way, the ads will appear on publisher pages across the Web, reaching as many as 200 million people.

To address the privacy implications of such an ambitious service, Claria has also hired a team of experts to ensure it meets industry and consumer clearances. Claria plans to announce partners and introduce the service, called Behaviorlink, in April.

"Behavioral advertising is the next big thing after search," company CEO Jeff McFadden said in a recent interview, referring to the booming, multibillion-dollar ad business connected to Web search properties like Google.

The desired shift would fulfill a vision McFadden has had for Web advertising since he started Claria six years ago, but which was derailed in the dot-com bust. He foresaw an ad network that could monitor Web surfing behavior and then deliver ads based on people's interests--much the way early DoubleClick and Engage ad networks proposed to but failed to deliver on because of privacy concerns and technology limitations. Claria, which turned itself into a pop-up adware purveyor, was similarly foiled, but with a host of lawsuits.

More than three years ago, Claria (then known as Gator) sparked a furor among online publishers with its practice of covering up their ad banners with its own. The Washington Post, The New York Times and Dow Jones, among others, sued Gator for covering their Web pages with its own ads, claiming the company violated copyrights and stole revenue in doing so. The suit settled out of court, but Claria has fought to clean up its image since, even by changing its name.

Claria now essentially wants to do the same ad swapping, but with publishers' permission. The selling point: Behaviorlink would allow Web site owners to share in the profits of Claria's targeted ads.

Claria develops advertising software that's bundled with and supports free software such as peer-to-peer application Kazaa. (Roughly 40 million people have installed the software.) Because Claria tracks people from an omniscient point on the desktop without recording personally identifiable data, it can make note of Web preferences and shopping habits, and send timely pop-ups ads. For example, it will send a pop-up coupon from 1-800-Flowers.com while a consumer is preparing to buy a bouquet from FTD.com.


The company wants to expand on this model by first growing its audience. Its new division, Vista Marketing Services, will be charged with forming relationships with application makers (i.e., toolbars, media players) so that it can more widely distribute new Behaviorlink advertising software, which will monitor people anonymously as they surf the Web in order to deliver personalized ads. The partnerships will help grow its audience from 40 million to 200 million, its stated goal.

That way, it can track a wider swath of the Web population and use the insight to sell more targeted and expensive display ads.

Initially, Claria plans to buy $100 million worth of inexpensive run-of-site ad inventory on publisher pages in the next year, and then resell it as behaviorally targeted promotions. For example, it might buy untargeted ad inventory for $1 per thousand impressions at Yahoo, and then resell it for $8 CPM to advertisers as behaviorally targeted.

This is possible because it can make note of consumers visiting car sites like Ford.com or Autobytel.com, and then deliver a car-related ad to them while they're surfing Yahoo. Consumers who've just been at Nordstrom.com might see a retail-clothing ad while visiting the horoscopes at Yahoo.

Claria said that as much as 85 percent of commerce interests are invisible to Web publishers. And its unique visibility into consumers' interests from the vantage point of the desktop will help many Web sites target ads better, according to Claria.

"Publishers have a lot of untargeted inventory that gets sold at unbelievably low rates if it gets sold at all," said Tom Hespos, president of media buying agency Underscore Marketing. "The way to enhance the value of that inventory is to add a layer of targetability to it. Publishers who let run of site inventory go for a dollar per thousand will be able to plug into BehaviorLink and get more money for the same inventory."

Key to Claria's plan will be to eventually partner with online publishers such as Yahoo or MSN to monitor the overlap of their audiences with its own and share in the revenue lift. Eventually, Claria also plans to improve Web search with the same formula.

Overture Services, a unit of Yahoo, has had a relationship with Claria for more than a year, distributing paid search ads to Claria's adware service. Overture is not ruling out an expansion of their partnership.

"If the Behaviorlink service could improve the Web experience for consumers, we'll consider it carefully," an Overture representative said.


Representatives from the online arms of The New York Times and The Washington Post did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last February, 6-year-old Claria moved into the original headquarters of Excite, a Web portal that petered out in the dot-com bust. McFadden, who as one of Excite's first employees picked the space originally, said he was worried about potential bad karma so he had all remnants of Excite colors--red, black and white--stripped from the office. Now it's a roomy, pastel colored work space with exposed ceilings, ping-pong table and "town hall" lunch area. The old company icon--a gator in the form of a stuffed animal--decorates some employee cubicles. The headquarters houses about 150 people, and another 100 people work in satellite offices.

Claria claims more than 1,400 advertisers, with more than 85 that are in the Fortune 1000. Toyota, American Express, Circuit City, Avon and Sony are among the major brands that have used Claria's software to distribute pop-up ads to people as they're visiting rival Web sites.

The company said it made more than $100 million in revenue last year, up 25 percent from 2003. Claria postponed its IPO last summer because the market started to lag and questions over the legality of adware and spyware were still being answered. Congress is attempting to pass legislation regulating the industry this year.

"We want to eventually take Claria the Behaviorlink company public, not Claria the pop-up company," McFadden said.

I'm not sure where I stand. I hate gator -with every ounce of my blood. I hate how they operate, I hate how they remove people's ability to choose for themselves -how their computer is configured. I also hate how they shove spyware down people's throats and then sue them when people call their parasitic crap what it is -spyware.

But this is different. They are refashioning themselves into something else.
The bankrobber tries to go legit. (And is now a banker).

I'm not sure what to think.

[Astrocloud]

Oh never mind. It's the same old gator.

[portwineboy]

I'll trust Claria about the same time I ask Michael Jackson to babysit my (as of yet nonexistent) kids.

[cyrnel]

You guys have heard MS is in talks with Claria (Gator) regarding acquisition, no? Somewhat old news, maybe a week or two ago, but there was a stink because the talks occurred at the same time MS degraded the threat level of Claria spyware in their antispyware definitions. MS antispyware is now fairly passive about it. Talk about a conflict of interest.

[shortynickel]

gd that sucks, cause gator is the worse thing ever made (not including worms and such) imo

[tspikes51]

Fuck You Gator (now Claria)!!!

Thanks for the warning.

[samspade123]

Thanks for the info.