What's New: Microsoft To Buy Adware Vendor?

Last week a rumor surfaced that Microsoft was in talks to purchase Claria, the distributor of the now-infamous Gator "brand" of adware. This week Microsoft's new AntiSpyware program (currently in beta) has begun to "Ignore" Claria software, such as various Gator and GAIN programs, Dashbar, PrecisionTime and Weatherscope. Coincidence?

It turns out that Microsoft has also set other adware programs to default to an action of Ignore, such as certain WhenU adware programs, WebHancer and Ezula Toptext. This follows news earlier this summer that certain adware companies have started to file suit against anti-spyware publishers for removing or mislabeling their software.

We hope this is not a trend of a useful program knucking under to adware vendors!

Monday, Jul 11, 2005 04:59 pm CDT

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