Microsoft to buy Claria?
Published June 30, 2005 by Ed Bott
From the New York Times comes a report that Microsoft is negotiating to buy Claria:
For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy a private Silicon Valley company, a move that underscores just how eager Microsoft is to catch up with Google, the search and advertising giant.
The company that Microsoft has pursued is controversial: Claria, an adware marketer formerly called Gator, and best known for its pop-up ads and software that tracks people visiting Web sites. The Gator adware has frequently been denounced by privacy advocates for its intrusiveness.
The offer price on the table as recently as yesterday was $500 million, according to people who have been briefed on the talks. But a person close to Microsoft said last night that the negotiations were on the verge of breaking off.
One person briefed on the deal said there was opposition within Microsoft to the acquisition.
Yikes. If you want to read more about this company, go to the Gator Information Center, run by my friends at PC Pitstop:
PC Pitstop believes that Gator products can degrade the quality of a user’s PC experience, and the applications themselves are not a good value. This belief is based on our hands-on use of Gator products, surveys of users that have Gator on their systems, and visitor feedback from our forums. Most Gator “users” are not aware of what Gator is doing on their PC behind the scenes, and even many advertisers are not aware their ads are being shown by Gator’s ad network through third-party contracts or Gator’s connection with Overture.
What is Microsoft thinking? This deal would be a P.R. disaster. The only way it makes sense is if Microsoft buys the company, fires everyone involved with it, has their buildings exorcised, and rewrites every line of code in their product.
Update: The deal’s dead. But it was still a stupid idea. Really, really stupid.
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Report: Microsoft to buy spyware purveyor?
Remember what I said in an earlier post about Microsoft not being stupid? If this story in the New York Times is true, scratch that. For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy a private Silicon…
If I didn’t know any better I’d think it were April Fools Day.
Yelp! I use UNIX every day at work and absolutely DESPISE it, but if this deal really goes through, I’ll have to seriously consider wiping Winders and installing linux on My home computer.
It HAS to be latter, right? I can’t imagine Microsoft wanting this criminal corporation except to dissolve it once and for all.
Microsoft in the Spyware Business?
I’ve seen a couple people talking about the negotiations going on between Microsoft and Claria (the bastards who made Gator). The sentiment seems to be that this will hurt Microsoft’s image. I failed to see this quote from the article…
Now this is scary!
Ed Bott: Microsoft to buy Claria?. “The company that Microsoft has pursued is controversial: Claria, an adware marketer formerly called Gator”
Gator, the mother of all horribly intrusive marketing tools. And Microsoft consider to buy it!?
This is h…
I just did a search for “gator” in Google. This is hit number one:
“PC Hell: Gator Removal Instructions”
Microsoft to buy them? Please tell me it’s a joke!
Microsoft + Claria = Microhysteria
Today rumours are cooking all over the place that Microsoft is in talks — and has a $500 million dollar offer on the table — for buying Claria, the company once well known for the hard-to-get-rid-of abomination known as Gator. They have b…
if gator is so hard to remove, this would make it just what the folks in redmond would want. then their crappy products would be on your computer forever.
Microsoft Antispyware “Ignores” Claria
It’s true. Microsoft Antispyware detects Claria’s adware still but the recommended action is set to Ignore. I first learned of this at Calendar of Updates in a post by Donna Buenaventura, another Microsoft Security MVP. I downloaded some Claria …
Conflict of Interest 102- Microsoft Negotiating with Claria
Thanks to a Revenews Reader for calling this to my attention. According to the New York Times. For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy a private Silicon Valley company, a move that underscores just how eager Microsoft is to catch up …
The idea of Microsoft using some of it’s monopoly money to “buys the company, fires everyone involved with it, has their buildings exorcised, and rewrites every line of code in their product” sounds great!
Proof Postive
That if enough people blog loudly about an issue, they can make a difference.
Microsoft was rumored to be negotiating to purchase Claria, a company that has been associated with spyware. Everybody from Ed Bott to Dwight Silverman wondered why Miscro…
Conflict of Interest 102- Microsoft Negotiating with Claria
Thanks to a Revenews Reader for calling this to my attention. According to the New York Times. For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy a private Silicon Valley company, a move that underscores just how eager Microsoft is to catch up …
Ed’s part solution…
“…..has their buildings exorcised”
Maybe ….but evil electon activity is possibly the real devil rather than evil spirits…
We need to coin a new word to fit the cleansing
of places of electronic evil.
jp