Everything about Claria Corporation totally explained
Claria Corporation (formerly
Gator Corporation) is a media marketing software
company based in
Redwood City, California. It was established in
1998 by
Denis Coleman. Its name was often used interchangeably with its
Gain advertising network, which it claimed serviced over 40 million users. Claria exited the adware business at the end of second quarter 2006. However, its 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".
Former Products of Note
Gator
Originally released in
1998, Gator was most frequently installed together with programs being offered free of charge, such as
Go!Zilla, or
Kazaa. The development of these programs is partially funded by revenue from advertising displayed by Gator. As of mid-
2003 Gator was installed on an estimated 35 million PCs. It has been installed through misleading or surreptitious means in the past, usually without disclosing that it'll be monitoring web browsing habits and displaying ads based on profiling of the user.
Even though Gator has always been installed with an
uninstall routine available via Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel on
Microsoft Windows, many spyware removal tools can detect and remove it. Gator's
end user license agreement attempts to disallow its manual removal by prohibiting "unauthorized means" of uninstallation.
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 its 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.
Coda: Claria sold the gator.com domain to hostgator.com on April 21, 2008.
Other Defunct Applications
As 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 isn't 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're 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.
A New Approach: PersonalWeb
PersonalWeb 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 News
In 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. 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.
On
July 1,
2006, Claria ceased displaying GAIN pop-up ads.
On April 21, 2008, Claria sold the gator.com domain.
Backers
Despite 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Claria Corporation'.
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