Say Anything Blog

CNET - The Department of Homeland Security has named Claria, an adware maker that online publishers once dubbed a "parasite," to a federal privacy advisory board.

An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of the committee, the department said Wednesday.

"This committee will provide the department with important recommendations on how to further the department's mission while protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information of citizens and visitors of the United States," Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the department's chief privacy officer, said in a statement.

For those of you not familiar with it, "Gator" was one of those programs that keeps your name, address, telephone and credit card information and allowed you to enter the information into web forms with the click of a button. Convenient, if you like that sort of thing, but the problem was that when you downloaded the program you also agreed to allow Gator to throw pop-ups at you. You would also receive no end of spam from Gator and its "associates" once they got a hold of your email address.

I download the program once a few years back. Soon after the installation my system was popping up so many adds it essentially rendered the entire computer worthless. A format and re-install was the only thing that fixed it. To most people this software would certainly qualify for the title of "spyware," but since Gator (now known as Claria) has taken to suing anyone who dares refer to its products as such I will avoid making any such direct accusation out of deference to my non-existant legal defense fund.

But now the jerks behind this annoying bit of software are advising the government on privacy concerns. Which pretty much means that we shouldn't be expecting any really useful internet privacy legislation out of our government any time soon as its clear they're still not grasping the problem.

(via Wizbang)