Adware and Under-Wear - The Definitive Guide

Tribune Media Services says, "Gator tracks the sites that users visit and forwards that data back to the company's servers. Gator sells the use of this information to advertisers who can purchase the opportunity to make ads pop up at certain moments, such as when specific words appear on a screen. It also lets companies launch a pop-up ad when users visit a competitor's Web site." Matt Mickiewicz of our own SitePoint warns, "Because Gator is installed on a user's PC, it can alter any Web page so that it delivers the advertising that Gator is paid for. In fact, that's already what Gator is doing - serving pop-up ads that cover the EXACT space occupied by banner ads. In essence, they swap a publisher's ad for their own. Gator has even resorted to serving the normal pop-up ads that promote competitors when a specific Website is visited. For example, visitors to AmericanAirlines.com can be hit with an offer to visit Delta Airlines."

You don't need a marketing consultant to tell you just how costly, and how troublesome, this is for the Web marketer. The user is denied access to legitimate, bought-and-paid-for advertising, and worse, is inundated with many more pop-ups and banners than they would be during normal, Gator-free surfing. Now that a judge has restrained Gator from these practices, we'll have to see what happens with Gator and with other, similar programs like TopText and Flyswat.

Gator has finally agreed to put removal instructions on its Website. Basically the user goes through Add/Remove in the Control Panel, locates Gator eWallet, and uninstalls it, making sure to check the "Delete User Information" box. OfferCompanion can also be removed through the Add/Remove applet.

EZula (TopText)

TopText is a program that works the same side of the street as Gator, but with a different approach -- the use of the infamous "yellow links." Basically, what TopText does is to "hijack" certain key words and phrases that have been purchased by advertisers -- say, "car" or "MP3." Users who have TopText on their computers see these words highlighted in yellow, no matter what Web site they're visiting. Clicking on these highlighted words sends them to the page of the company who paid for the click-through on that specific keyword.

Matt Mickiewicz again warns Web vendors, "People are at this very minute leaving your Website by following links that were inserted by TopText, and you don't have any say about it!" Meanwhile home users are being suckered into following links never intended by the Website owner. Similar products from Flyswat and WhenU use green highlighting and/or superimposed graphical links. For Website owners, this can draw consumers away from your business site and lead them to the competition -- potentially disastrous for those who survive on "pay-per-click" (PPC) protocols. For Web surfers, this can slow your browsing, crash your computer, and track your surfing and buying habits without your knowledge.

Most Website owners don't appreciate any additions or modifications to their site; as Appleworks phrases it, "This is akin to having advertising stickers slapped on your backside as you walk down the street." TopText installs itself surreptitiously when you visit any affiliated sites (which currently include the search engine LookSmart, the file sharing networks Kazaa and iMesh, Gator, and Commission Junction). Fred Langa says, "[T]hese links are not placed there by the web site creator or author; they're inserted by the software, which bases its decisions not on simple contextual relevance, but on who's *paying* to be linked. In other words, the 'links' are really ads."

If you're a user who's been a beneficiary of the TopText download, you might find a file called EZULAMAIN.EXE on your hard drive. You can get rid of this one easily enough through the Add/Remove applet in Control Panel. Webmasters may be able to block TopText from running on their pages by adding the anti-Smart Tags META tag:

<META NAME="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" CONTENT="TRUE">

though this is not yet verified.

Other TopText-like programs are floating around out there. SurfPlus is, ironically, a browser plugin that purports to stop annoying pop-up ads. It used to install a program called EasyLink that reportedly specialized in pornographic links, but now claims that the EasyLink functionality is disabled. AdPointer, another similar utility, seems to be missing from the Net, though I imagine copies of the program are still floating around.