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Privacy The Almighty Buck

Gator Examined 324

Posted by michael from the looking-a-gift-gator-in-the-mouth dept.
Ben Perry writes "News.com.com has a story about a Harvard researcher's study on how Gator operates. The report 'provides some data as to how much advertising Gator is showing and to whom it is targeted' and focuses on where Gator replaces a site's ads with Gator's ads. Gator is facing several lawsuits because of this technique."
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Gator Examined More

Gator Examined

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  • What else is new? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SamBC ( 600988 ) <s.barnett-cormack@lancaster.ac.uk> on Friday May 23, 2003 @08:55AM (#6023312)
    Well, we did all kinda know that gator was obnoxious, especially those of us who inadvertently installed it when it was quite new. While what it does is obnoxious, it really isn't as bad as how it gets on peoples systems in the first place.

    My experience was that the user was forced to swallow gator along with software that they actually want, and was not told accurately or fully what gator would actually do. Just a nice little flowery version that makes it sound like a good thing.
    • It is pretty bad though, my friend got some gator-produced program that did something with your clock somehow on my laptop and the keyboard stopped working, just died. I couldn't figure for weeks it out till I ran ad-aware and it uninstalled the gator clock thing, and boom, the keyboard worked again.

      • I am sure software like this has caused big problems for a lot of people. I've had two bad run-ins with stuff like this.

        The first was some software similar to Gator called WebHancer. I still have no idea how it got on my computer. Between my lack of patience and my dialup connection at the time, I never downloaded software or anything more than web browsing on my home computer. When I was on the internet one day, I lost the connection and all of a sudden my dialup software would not reconnect due to so

    • Well, we did all kinda know that gator was obnoxious...

      Indeed, I've always found the concept of spyware absolutely revolting and the companies that push these 'products' are worse than slime. But I've also assumed that it's a windows only problem - and one that I can easily avoid since I only play games on my windows partition and I keep the network interface permanently disabled.

      Does anyone know if there are any UNIX equivalents that we should be aware of?

  • How does Gator operate? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JKConsult ( 598845 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @08:57AM (#6023326)
    Gator operates by preying on the stupid, uninformed, and lazy in order to push a business model for which there is no proof that it actually works one bit, in the face of a mountain of proof that it generates ill will towards any company that uses it and its clients.

    Bet you won't see that in their prospectus, but it's the truth.

  • Gator? (Score:3, Informative)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Friday May 23, 2003 @08:57AM (#6023327) Homepage Journal

    Gator? Ohhh.. you mean one of those things my Privoxy [privoxy.org] and Squid [squid-cache.org] combo block?

  • Great Refutation (Score:5, Funny)

    by rwiedower ( 572254 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @08:59AM (#6023340) Homepage

    "Eighty percent of the magic is what he'll never see," Eagle said of Edelman and his findings in a phone interview. "He's only touching a part of the elephant."

    Wow. Now that's clear, easily understandable logic. I guess it was just too much to refute the study's claims on actual facts, rather than dredging up tired cliches.

    • "He's only touching a part of the elephant."

      I was gonna say, that is the weirdest thing I've heard all week. What the hell does that mean? Is that a real saying? Which part is he touching?

  • How does gator work? (Score:5, Informative)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <[be] [at] [eclec.tk]> on Friday May 23, 2003 @08:59AM (#6023345) Homepage Journal
    Simple, I install adaware (lavasoft [lavasoft.de]) and it doesn't anymore.

    I'd really like to know how effectual advertising via annoying popups really can be. I mean I thought it was proven that internet advertising doesn't work. Right now I'm reading slashdot with ads all over it, unless I'm looking right at them I'll never even think twice about them.

    • I mean I thought it was proven that internet advertising doesn't work.

      Hey, some ads work! I've clicked lots of ads on Google and a few times found really useful stuff.

    • Adaware alternative (Score:2, Informative)

      by John3 ( 85454 )
      Spybot [kolla.de] seems a bit more comprehensive and user friendly than Adaware, but to be sure I run both. :-)
      • actually, I've found that ad-aware won't detect EVERYTHING and seems to skip some things intentionally -- new.net spyware for e.g. -- so spybot is the better of the two. that said, i've seen some adware that can't be removed by spybot but can be removed by adaware. spybot's HOSTS file and immunization feature makes it more useful, honestly.
    • But if you looking for a ticket on Expedia, you probably will click on a pop-up promising lower fares at Orbitz. Well, may be you won't, but 99% of web users will.
    • I found adaware didn't work too well through the ISP/Employer's proxy. It told me I had ads but it didn't stop them.

      the "hosts" file is in your windows dir or maybe in /etc depending on your op sys. hosts.sam is a sample file and needs renaming to "hosts" (ie no .sam, to work.

      127.0.0.1 is local host ie your computer
      connect blah blah is what I don't want
      # thingy is a comment

      Ie send requests for what I don't want to my bit bucket.

      Sample mod:

      127.0.0.1 connect.247media.ads.link4ads.com # 247media.ad
      • In many cases, it can help to use 0.0.0.0. If you use 127.0.0.1, it tries to connect to your local system and fails about 1 second later*; if you use 0.0.0.0, your TCP/IP stack will generally reject it immediately, so pages will load faster.

        * - assuming you aren't running a local webserver - if you are, it'll just give you an instant 404 which is almost as good as using 0.0.0.0 but uses ever so slightly more resources (i.e. your httpd).
    • Gator, like ALL advertising agencies (which in effect is what Gator is), couldn't care less whether their ads work or not.

      What they DO care about is whether their target market THINKS the ads work. And their target market is NOT consumers; it is those companies that BUY advertising.

      So the people we have to convince that such ad techniques suck are not consumers or ad agencies, but rather, the retailers who are buying these adspaces. Unfortunately, so long as retailers' marketing departments are justifying
  • I thought this was going to be some floridian biology course.

  • Very bad comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:01AM (#6023358)
    "Companies like Google, Overture and Gator are shining examples of success,. . ."

    To comapre Google to spammers and spyware manufacturers is like, well, I can't think of anything right now. But the comparison is ridiculous.

    Reminds me of the quote from the spammer Scelson from a previous /. article where he says he is doing nothing different than what other advertisers use the postal system for. The two situations aren't even close.

  • Whu? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:02AM (#6023363)
    "Eighty percent of the magic is what he'll never see," Eagle said of Edelman and his findings in a phone interview. "He's only touching a part of the elephant."

    Touching magic elephants?! What do they have in the coffee at Gatpor HQ?

  • Well, duh! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jred ( 111898 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:05AM (#6023385) Homepage
    There is absolutely nothing in that article that is news to anyone here. Well, except maybe the fact that Sun uses Gator to advertise. I wouldn't have thought they'd stoop that low, especially since many people boycott companies that use services such as Gator to advertise.

    I guess it really doesn't matter if I boycott Sun, though. I'm much more likely to implement a Linux solution than a Sun solution. It's all about the Benjamins, and I don't generally do work for companies with unlimited (or even moderately deep) pockets.

    • Re:Well, duh! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by botzi ( 673768 )
      I wouldn't have thought they'd stoop that low, especially since many people boycott companies that use services such as Gator to advertise.

      Come on now.... I don't think there're "many" people ready to go so far, because a company's marketing unit has decided to use Gator for advertising.... I'm positive that the pop-ups are quiet anoying, but a boycott??? Hardly believable....

    • Too bad the companies with the moderately deep pockets are the ones that pay well. I work for one with more then "moderately deep pockets" and i like my nice big paycheck. :)
      • That's true. Unfortunately, there aren't many of the deep pocket companies hiring around here. So I'll keep nickel & diming them & try to stay off unemployment :)

  • Deleting pages won't work (Score:5, Informative)

    by Metasquares ( 555685 ) <<slashdot> <at> <metasquared.com>> on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:05AM (#6023387) Homepage
    "Eagle contends that advertisers are only permitted to target groups of sites, not individual Web sites. But on Tuesday, after being alerted to the existence of the Berkman study, Gator deleted marketing materials from its Web site that suggested otherwise. The deleted Web page, which had existed since at least February 2002, had promised: 'Gator can pop up your advertising or promotional message anywhere--even at a competitor's site.'" The beauty of the web is that they can delete whatever pages they'd like and archive.org still has them cached and readily available for viewing by the people they tried to keep in the dark.

  • Gator for Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by wardomon ( 213812 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:06AM (#6023393)
    I checked Freshmeat and SourceForge. It seems that the Linux coders are far behind the technology curve. Just another example of the superiority of closed source software.

  • Gator & linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by shawn(at)fsu ( 447153 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:11AM (#6023428) Homepage
    There are some times when I hate how many programs esp. on the internet wont work with Linux. Then there is Gator.com and everything is put back in to perspective.

    It's nice not getting those popups, "Would you like to set your homepage to gator.com"=]

  • Analogy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by donscarletti ( 569232 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:12AM (#6023437)
    It seems to me that willfully installing gator on ones computer is like attaching one of those electronic dog training collars on ones self. It is something that does very little for you (its form filling capibilities are limited and pretty worthless) and allows its controller to zap you with really annoying little irritations.

    Frankly I am vehemetly against loosing my computing freedom but I would very happily choose to loose the freedom to write exploitive parasiteware that does not help the user one bit.

  • Translation of article (crap) (Score:3, Funny)

    by saintjab ( 668572 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:14AM (#6023451) Homepage Journal
    Gator is crap. Gator is being sued by many people who think the product is crap. Gator has several competitors who are equally as shady and crappy as Gator. Gator spies on you, reports to an unknown authority about your habits and tendencies, and people still use it. These people are not quick to show themselves because they know they are idiots for using this crap. Then the author proceeds to compare this crap with the success of a legitimate company like Google. How is this helpful article? It only states the obvious. Gator and its ilk are crap and now there is a crappy article about it all.

  • Gator vs. GAIN (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dunar ( 575371 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:15AM (#6023460)
    In my experience, Gator is not as much of a problem as GAIN (Gator Advertising & Information Network) - where Gator is the e-wallet, GAIN is the ad (spy) ware. Getting rid of Gator isn't so hard, but removing GAIN involves removing the application its using - for most Windows users this would mean removing IE, and we all know how difficult that can be...

  • This is crap! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:16AM (#6023465)


    Companies like this exist for one reason : loopholes. Much like how spam operates. And when it comes down to the legality of it, they claim "you signed up for it!" Right... No, I signed up for the program that came bundled with YOUR spyware. And they say it has easy password forms, etc? What browser does NOT include these features? Password forms? Sounds real secure, let some internet-capable program saving cached passwords to sites you've purchased items on! On windows XP no less! Horray for you, smart end user.

    Go punch an internet marketing executive in his face, today. You'll feel better, and I'll mail you a dollar.

  • What the hell is Sun thinking... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by djh101010 ( 656795 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:19AM (#6023490) Homepage Journal
    ...but I repeat myself.

    Sun Microsystems is using this spyware windows program to target people going to IBM's website? Is this an allegorical example fabricated for the article, or is Sun actually doing this?

    I've disagreed with some of their technical decisions lately. I've certainly disagreed with some of their marketing decisions lately. But, for them to use one of the most abusive advertizing mechanisms on the Internet, is dissapointing if it's true.

    What's next - "Get a B!GG3R Server - She won't believe your bandwidth" in my in-box?
  • Unless I missed something...

    We have had dumbasses within our company install Gator, and it generates pop-ups on our intranet pages as well, not just "targeted" domains.

    I didn't seem to see anything in there that covered that.

  • Gator's memory footprint and other amusements (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Monkeylaser ( 674360 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:23AM (#6023525)
    There's nothing quite as much fun as finding that your system resources are being eaten up by this little program just because your sister decided it would be a "good idea" to download Kazaa and Gator and a couple of other spyware things beside, just so she could steal her collection of creatively bankrupt pop music more easily.

    Eventually, I got so sick of the whole booting up to find a new and horrific new chunk of spyware on my comp, having been downloaded by her that I ended up just formatting C: and going back to my old system files.

    I certainly hope Gator gets sued into oblivion. It'll be one less thing to clean off my hard drive after my sister comes within 5 feet of the computer.

    A question, though. Has anyone here ever actually bought anything off a pop-up ad after seeing it? I know I haven't, nor have I heard of anyone doing so, it just seems to be a money hole for the advertisers on the whole.

    Seems to me that at one point I could actually remember making decisions based on the quality of the service offer, not the pop-up ads or advertising hype that became an intrusive part of my daily life. But maybe that's just me feeling old at 23.

  • Trusting Gator (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Musashi Miyamoto ( 662091 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:24AM (#6023530)
    I don't really trust Gator at all, but if you a have an effective popup blocker [popupinspector.com], the software is actually really nice. Not only does it remember your passwords and forms, but it can fill in a form, even if you have never visited the page before. It has enough intelligence to know to put your address into a form that has a slot that says "Address" or "Address #1", and your last name in a form slot that says "Last Name" or "Sirname" or "Full Name".

    If it were available for a fee without the adware/spyware, I would buy it.
    • Last Name: Doe Full Name: John Doe Sirname: Sir John of Mimsy-Poppington Bobblewith Doe, Esq. ABC CTA ASAP RSVP, Duke of Earl Works like a charm for me.
    • I ever get to the point where im so lazy that I will install spyware on my machine so I wouldn't have to type my address, please shoot me.

  • Gator's Intranet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pchown ( 90777 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:37AM (#6023642)
    Interesting, I went to look at www.gator.com [gator.com], but the first time round I typed gator.com [gator.com] instead. Apparently Gator has a Debian [debian.org] mirror, but you can't access it from the outside. (No doubt it will disappear soon after it gets Slashdotted.)

  • Hijacking banner ads is not illegal... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sabu mark ( 205793 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @09:40AM (#6023663)
    ...it's sneaking the spyware on the victim's machine without his informed consent that's an unfair business practice. I worry that the courts, or far worse, the legislature, will miss the point. Instead of forcing spyware to announce its presence more clearly, they'll go after the wrong thing and make modification of commercial web pages illegal, which is not only Not The Issue, it's a major "YRO" offense - an offense to our liberties.

    Conceivably, and according to the bullshit they spew in their defense, a customer could want the service they provide, namely (supposedly) an intelligent browsing agent that gives the user helpful information (i.e. Expedia's airfares) based on his interests (i.e. browsing Orbitz.com). Suppose someone actually found this desirable, and maybe even found it desirable to modify his browser's rendering of a web page, or perform search-and-replace operations on the original HTML document, so that, say, every banner ad became an Expedia link. Surely he should be allowed to install such a program if he wanted. It's not as if Orbitz can sue me for modifying or differently rendering their web page in the privacy of my own home! Unless the government makes it so, in its infinite lack of wisdom.

    The issue is not that spyware "hijacks" commercial web pages, but that it deceives the victim. There needs to be a doctrine of "clear language" applied to contracts like clickwrap licenses. A contract is (or ought to be) invalid if a party does not understand its terms. When Kazaa gives you fifty pages of 8-point legalese in a ten-line window, a user of reasonable competence cannot be expected to notice, let alone understand, all the contracts he is implicitly entering into - including the contract that says "We the Gator Corporation get to fuck with your computer and read all your email and analyze your personality and sell it to porn companies and degrade your performance by 95% and never tell you about it hahahahaha."

    That's what the government should work to correct. But forgive me if I'm not exactly filled with confidence that it will.

    "That government is best which governs least." -- Henry David Thoreau
    "The more laws, the less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
    • "A contract is (or ought to be) invalid if a party does not understand its terms."

      Sounds to me like an easily-abused out for people who either didn't read the EULA, or simply want to get out of a contract they regret entering.

      Being able to claim ignorance as a reason to get out of a contract is a terrible idea because it puts the burden on the other party to prove that you did in fact understand the terms.

  • Other Programs... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheMayor ( 123827 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @10:10AM (#6023913)
    It would be interesting to see what other popular "helper" applications like Gator do. For example, I see plenty of people in my work place with WeatherBug or WebShots installed on their computers. They have to be collecting information and replacing ads much like Gator does.

    • Re:Other Programs... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cluke ( 30394 )
      I got a popup yesterday asking if I wanted to install Weatherbug. I refused, of course, but out of curiosity I did a little research, and ad-aware classifies it as a data-miner. Google has loads of hits for Weatherbug+Spyware [google.com] (amusingly the first one links to a denial from the manufacturers, counterbalanced by about a thousand hits with people saying it is)

      It does not seem to be well thought of [axe-s.com], anyhow.

    • Re:Other Programs... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fact0r ( 668279 )
      I find new.net [new.net] the nastiest. It installs itself in your TCP/IP stack and if you remove it manually (by deleting it) it breaks your network stack.

      At one stage Ad-aware [lavasoftusa.com] removed the new.net file without correctly uninstalling it (thus breaking your network connection).

      New.net is one of the dodgiest companies out there - their site suggests that they sell legitimate domain names - unfortunately they don't sell domain names in real TLDs. Their dodgy bit of software makes domain names with non-real TLDs (which

  • Predatory Company (Score:4, Funny)

    by ronfar ( 52216 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @10:34AM (#6024099) Journal
    One thing I like about Gator is their commitment to "truth in advertising," they are a vicious, predatory company named after a vicious, predatory animal. Their software hides itself in your computer (or your friends computer, or you parents computer) and gators hide themselves in swamps waiting for unsuspecting victims. It's almost as good as the old TIA logo.

    Imagine if Microsoft had a name that suited them as well....

  • Horror (Score:5, Funny)

    by imuffin ( 196159 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @11:09AM (#6024493)
    Imagine the horror I faced the other day. As I approached my computer, I saw a co-worker sitting at my desk, his finger on the left-mouse button. Eyeing the screen [stupidandlazy.com], I screamed "NOOOOOOOoooooo!" as I ran to take control of the mouse. But it was too late - the button was already pressed down, and he - like a suicide bomber waiting to blow up - had only to release his finger. It was a hopeless situation, and my computer was doomed.

    • Re:Horror (Score:3, Informative)

      by Thuktun ( 221615 )

      But it was too late - the button was already pressed down, and he - like a suicide bomber waiting to blow up - had only to release his finger.

      Unlike a bomb trigger, in Windows you can simply move the mouse cursor away from the focus area of the control before releasing the mouse button if you want to abort the button push.

  • I hope Gator wins... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jvanus ( 196984 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @11:46AM (#6024871)
    Gator is truly annoying, but that is not the problem.

    If Gator is successfully sued for affecting advertising, that could affect court cases against popup-blockers, or even ReplayTV and TiVo. We could loose truly useful products as collateral damage.

  • The lawsuit that was mentioned... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cmburns69 ( 169686 ) on Friday May 23, 2003 @12:39PM (#6025353) Homepage Journal
    I noticed that the lawsuit [com.com] Gator was facing was launched June, 2002. Does anybody know whatever happened to it?

    Did they settle? Was it dismissed? What of it!

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