Claria Corporation
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Claria Corporation (formerly Gator Corporation) is a media marketing software company based in Redwood City, California. They were established in 1998 by Denis Coleman. Their name was often used interchangeably with their Gain advertising network, which they claimed serviced over 40 million users. Claria exited the adware business at the end of second quarter 2006.[1] However, their software still remains installed on millions of PCs. Gator was perhaps best known for the flagship Gator (also known as Gain AdServer) adware products, which display ads on the computers of web surfers. It bills itself as the "leader in online behavioral marketing". The company changed its name to Claria Corporation on October 30 2003 in an effort to "better communicate the expanding breadth of offerings that [they] provide to consumers and advertisers", according to CEO and President Jeff McFadden. Strategic rebranding such as this is often an attempt by a corporation at distancing itself from "past product errors or partnerships".[citation needed]
Former Products of NoteGatorOriginally released in 1998, Gator was most frequently installed together with programs being offered free of charge, such as Go!Zilla, or Kazaa.[citation needed] The development of these programs is partially funded by revenue from advertising displayed by Gator.[citation needed] As of late 2003 Gator was installed on an estimated 38 million PCs.[citation needed] It has been installed through misleading or surreptitious means in the past, usually without disclosing that it will be monitoring web browsing habits and displaying ads based on profiling of the user.[citation needed] Even though Gator has always been installed with an uninstall routine[citation needed] (although only available via Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel[citation needed]), many spyware removal tools[weasel words] can detect and remove it.[citation needed] Gator's end user license agreement attempts to disallow its manual removal by prohibiting "unauthorized means" of uninstallation.[citation needed] The Gator software has in the past undercut the fundamental ad-supported nature of many Internet publishers by replacing banner ads on web sites with its own, thereby depriving the content provider of the revenue necessary to continue providing that content. In June 2002 a number of large publishers, including the New York Post, The New York Times, and Dow Jones & Company, sued Gator Software for its practice of replacing ads. Most of the lawsuits were settled out of court in February 2003. Though their products are almost universally recognized as spyware, Gator Corporation denied it and attempted to combat such labels with litigation. In September 2003 the company threatened many websites that identified Gator as spyware with libel lawsuits. Other Defunct ApplicationsAs Gator corporation, Claria released a suite of "free" Internet applications that performed various tasks. However, after installing the applications, a user would continually be shown ads from the GAIN network, even when the programs were not running in the foreground. This suite included:
While using the software, a user will be shown ads from GAIN Adserver. According to Computer Associates' spyware information center, all applications in the suite are classified as both adware and spyware, as they both display ads unrelated to the product while the primary user interface is not visible. These programs all employ the user's Internet connection to report behavior information back to Claria. Although the user's explicit consent is always required to install these applications, Claria took advantage of the fact that most users choose not bothering to educate themselves about what they are installing. In most cases, during the install process, users must choose whether to install the "free" version (which serves lots of ads as described above) or to pay the $30 for a version that serves no ads. Since the announcement to shut the ad network down, Claria has stopped accepting payment for "ad free" versions. [2] A New Approach: PersonalWebPersonalWeb is a new advertising model proposed by Claria Corporation, in which clients will install an application that serves up behaviorally targeted content to a browser home page, rather than their previous model. This "home page application" will still be supported by ads, however the intention is to use ads that are less intrusive much in the way that a typical Google search results page has sponsored content (no pop ups and more use of sponsored search listings, etc.) Recent NewsIn July 2005, Microsoft Corporation came under fire when it revealed that their AntiSpyware product would no longer label Claria software as "spyware". News had surfaced that Microsoft was also contemplating the purchase of Claria, which many consumers felt to be a conflict of interest. [3] Other spyware-reporting agencies, such as Computer Associates and Panda Software's TruPrevent Technologies, still label Claria products as both adware and spyware. In March 2006, Claria claimed that it would be exiting the adware business and focusing on personalized search technology[4]. On July 1, 2006, Claria ceased displaying GAIN pop-up ads. BackersDespite their generally unpopular reputation, Claria Corporation has received backing from major venture capital firms, including Greylock, Technology Crossover Ventures, and U.S. Venture Partners. They filed for a $150 million IPO in April 2004, but withdrew the filing in August 2004. References
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