Microsoft to Purchase Claria?!

[aquias]

Paperghost and several others are covering a story from the New York Times...

Microsoft purchasing Claria????? Anyone else see a problem here...

http://www.vitalsecurity.org/

 

[Mike2287]

Hmmmm....Sleeping with the enemy.

Or maybe $icrosoft figures if you can't beat'em, join'em

 

[bcastner]

aquias,

Yes I see a problem.

This honestly baffles me.

Bill

 

[aquias]

Well, we're not alone. No one seems able to figure out what angle Microsoft could be looking at this from.

Ben Edelman (

http://www.benedelman.org/)

has some interesting thoughts on why, but is following the rest of the technical community with a big "Huh?".

 

[2ffat]

Jerry Pournelle has written about this in Byte (

http://www.byte.com/documents/s=9502/byt1121108611501/0711_pournelle.html).

For those of you without subscriptions, here is a summary. MS has not said one way or another about buying Claria but they have changed the way it is detected in Antispyware (

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/claria_letter.mspx).

The default used to be to remove or quaratine it but now it is to allow for its installation.

Mr. Pournelle feels this has more to do with legal litigation than acquisition. Claria has been paying lawyers to go after companies that block their software, including, it seems, MS.

James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
^{I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!}

 

[aquias]

Several sites have started to cover this.

Suzi at Spywarewarrior.com has several blogs and links to various articles about this. Through some testing and discussion with Sunbelt Eric Howes was able to discover that Claria was "downgraded" in March.

 

[MasterRacker]

I've read that the purchase rumors were sent up as a trial balloon to see how people reacted. Changing the default action based on legal pressure makes a certain amount of sense. It that's true, it's amazing that Claria would have the confidence to go after Microsoft.

<sub>Jeff
[purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day

I was not born cynical - I earned my cynicism through careful observation of the world around me.</sub>

 

[aquias]

I agree and it sets a very scarey precedent. MS is the big boy of big boys on the block. If they aren't going to fight back against ad/spyware companies it really leaves the user community in a very bad situation.

 

[DColcl]

for those of us that are n00bs to this thread, who or what is Claria?

Dan

 

[aquias]

Claria is the former Gator. They are a spyware/adware company that has a host of poor history...

http://www.benedelman.org/news/063005-1.html

Ben Edelman covers what they are and the problems with this nicely.

 

[DColcl]

ouch, now I see the concern.

 

[aquias]

And now it is being reported the deal is off...

http://www.netrn.net/spywareblog/

 

[Sympology]

Maybe what Microsoft need to amend is there Terms and conditions of allowing third party software to install on Windows O/S(I'm sure the legal people could do this)stating that all software installed must be available to be removed via the add / remove control panel WITHOUT the need to access external devices or web sites.
That way any software such as Gator installing must be easily removed otherwise it's a breach of license, then MS can sue them big time.
Proberbly to late for XP but maybe for Windows LongTime?



Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004