Update (October 3, 2002):
Many of the sites formerly using the ActiveX installer of Gator have withdrawn from the campaign. Whether this can be attributed to the ScumWare community's targetting by E.Mail of the sites' operators or not isn't known, but it is handy to know that this problem has lessened. In light of related problems involving Internet Explorer (see XP Scandal story), surfers need to redouble their security stance.
UPS (United Parcel Service) has now joined the Gator lawsuit. UPS became initially aware that a problem with their site was happening when surfers complained about psychic hotline ads on the UPS site. UPS does not accept most third-party advertising and has no psychic hotline advertisements. When testing to determine what surfers were complaining about, the testers encountered FedEX banners on the site. The banners were being served up by Gator via stealth popups. Gator promises that it can place advertising on a competitors' sites.
Update (September 1, 2002):
In related news, Gator's ongoing campaign to sneek Gator onto as many computers as possible has recently intensified. The new campaign uses an old trick of Gator's, the misuse of ActiveX permissions. Many Internet Explorer surfers never set their ActiveX permissions to disable (not allow) the installation of ActiveX without a "prompt for permisson" window being displayed. This configuration allows Gator (or any ActiveX program) to be installed silently in the background. Many popular public forums (including CommunityZero.COM and Webring.ORG) are running the ActiveX installer on page load and page exit.
Gator is a dangerous and malicious program that should never be allowed on one's computer. The anti scumware community is mounting a letter writing (and E.Mail sending) campaign to inform websites of this new trick by Gator. Sites displaying the installer will be aggressively targeted.
Original story (August 1, 2002):
In a moment of stunning clarity supported by privacy advocates, spyware haters, and most anyone following the scumware scandals, Gator has been sued by a consortium of heavy-hitting websites and companies. The list of plaintiffs is a veritable who's who of online publishing, legal services, financial services and markets, sports, and advertising conglomerates:
- Washington Post Newsweek Interactive Co.,
- Gannett Satellite Information Network,
- Media West-GSI,
- the New York Times Company,
- the Boston Globe Newspaper Company,
- Dow Jones,
- Smartmoney,
- the Chicago Tribute Interactive,
- Condenet,
- American City Business Journals,
- Cleveland Live, and
- Knight Ridder Digital
The plaintiffs presented the court with a laundry list of objections to how Gator serves ads, where it serves ads, the effect of the ads and how these ads damage the plaintiffs. In addition to redirecting surfers away from a plaintiff's site, and diluting the plaintiff's perceived value of their ad space, the complaint also maintains that ads directly competitive (ie, Toyota ads on a Ford site) are not only seen, but specifically targetted. This targetting has been proven via marketing materials from Gator itself in which Gator offered competitive ads to only be served on a competitors site. The plaintiffs have labeled this exact method to be parasitic advertising. They further cited a loss of content control. A preliminary injunction was laid on Gator to immediately stop this type of advertising. Legal analysts maintain that the judge acted correctly. In a related lawsuit earlier this year, Gator was permanently barred from using similar advertising tactics, though the scope of that ruling was significantly narrower.
This is undoubtedly merely the first of many such lawsuits specifically aimed at spyware and scumware companies. When 'Net advertising visibly shrank two years ago, many formerly honorable companies turned to scumware and spyware tactics to survive. In the last year, several new companies were created that were solely scumware. Let us all hope that the courts sort this out nicely and punish the spyware and scumware companies, making the illegal strategies they use obviously bad business.
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