Gator has run afoul not only of Web surfers, who generally dislike pop-ups, but also of publishers who rely on advertising revenues. The privately held company, which says it charges advertisers fees starting at $25,000, has attracted a slew of lawsuits challenging its business practices and the legality of luring advertisers away from Web sites that must pay to produce content. The company in February settled a case brought by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Dow Jones and other media companies. Other lawsuits brought against Gator by catalogue retailer L.L. Bean, hotel chain Extended Stay America, and online loan marketplace LendingTree.com are pending. Gator says its practices are legal because consumers agree to receive the ads when they download and install its software: an e-wallet and authentication application that makes it easier for people to register with Web sites and make online purchases. Gator is included with popular ad-supported software such as Divx and NetSonic, which help the company distribute its product to a claimed 35 million current users. Edelman, who is a student fellow at Harvard law school's Berkman Center for Internet and Society -- which sponsored the report -- has authored many similar studies in the past about topics such as Google's Web filtering, false Whois data, and registration of domain names with typographical errors. Although it would be possible for someone to install the Gator client and record its behaviour, this approach is problematic. For instance, Gator delays serving ads from minutes to hours after a visitor leaves a Web site, making it difficult to trace what triggered the pop-ups. Edelman automated the process by using a packet sniffer to ask Gator for its ad lists for thousands of different sites. He found that Gator targets specific host names, such as support.microsoft.com, and sometimes targets identical ads at dozens or hundreds of Web sites. The University of Phoenix, for instance, pays for ads aimed at scores of other university sites, such as the University of California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University. Wednesday's report shows that Gator is very specific in monitoring Web browsing. For example, it carefully watches what people type into the Google search engine, hunting for phrases like "preventing pregnancy", "high cholesterol" and "Toro lawn mower part", the study says. Edelman's research shows that even federal government Web sites are fair game. Gator users looking for information from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention may see an ad for "thinner thighs in four weeks", and Gator watches for users visiting areas of the Food and Drug Administration's site relating to Viagra, breast implants and weight loss, the study found. Advertisers identified as Gator customers in Edelman's study, including Sun, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. How Gator works
According to Edelman, a Gator server sends a list of ads to the Gator client, based on the domain name of the site visited. In his research, the lists consisted of a series of hyperlinks to Zip files, such as http://bg.gator.com/Banners/13811.1/13811.gbd2zip. The Gator client downloads and displays only the ads that jibe with the user's prior actions, Edelman found, which might mean not showing the same ad twice in a row. Gator's ad server appears to ignore other variables sent by the client utility, including locale, ZIP code, user ID and machine ID, and frequently displays ads after users leave a targeted Web site instead of while they're still viewing it. Gator's Eagle would not discuss details, calling it a "proprietary" algorithm. "Why am I going to put my intelligence where people like Ben or my competitors may be drilling down?" he said. 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." Gator said on Wednesday that the deletion was part of a new marketing campaign that had been planned for months. Even faced with the daunting threats of fierce legal battles and the dubious honour of marketing the most complained-about piece of "spyware," Gator says it's unbowed. "Companies like Google, Overture and Gator are shining examples of success," Eagle said. "Our consumers save billions of dollars per year on software that they'd have to spend $20 to $30 on if they weren't ad supported. Yes, I am sorry that many Web sites don't have a valid business model, but don't blame Gator on their failure. They crashed and burned long before we came on the scene."
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Going after gator is fine, but there are litterally THOUSANDS of other smaller companies doing this, on a much more destructive scale, Gator should be dealth with, but these other companies need to be shutdown!
I was very impressed with your article on "gator" Spyware, I just spent the day removing it from my system.
I decided to look online to see what "Gator" was when I came across your article.
I personaly feel that "Gator is an invasion of my privacy!" I didn't ask for it, nor do I want my web sites shown to other people just to hound me, similer to Telemarketers do with a phone.
I will check this site more often, but I will be on guard every time I visit any website.
Kate Wray