[ I wrote this at the end of last year as a person opinion paper. My company Lycos.com was doing business with these scumbags and I was trying to garner support to stop the deal. In general I was listened to but we were too desperate to pass up the deal. Sigh. ]
Gator and such software is evil and they must be stopped by any means. Their software is basically viral with their main user base created without user authorization and usually without their knowledge. 95% of their user base was gained by unfair business practices which they are now being rewarded for, even if they have "changed".
"The problem is that the users don't know what's being installed. Gator is a program that silently piggybacks itself on other popular programs like Gozilla. It doesn't bring up its own screen saying "Now installing Gator." The only indications that Gator is installed is a blurb buried deep in the fine print of the twenty page click-thru license agreement, and Gator showing up in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. Worse, when you try uninstalling Gator, a piece of it still remains that continues to perform stealth advertisement hijacking until you uninstall it as well. Most non-computer-geeks won't have the time or inclination to figure this out.
Gator is almost virus-like in its attempts to conceal itself from the user, do things without their consent, and spread itself to more machines. It includes only the bare minimum required to make a paper-thin claim of ethical behavior."
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