Last Updated on: 30th July 2022, 11:27 am
For some reason this didn’t post the first time but maybe that was for the best since I screwed something up anyway. Here it is again, hopefully all fixed.
What’s In A Name?
I just read that The Gator Corporation, the people behind some of the spyware we all love so much, has decided to change it’s name to Claria to better reflect their business plan and marketing strategy
and to distance itself from the Gator name, a name that anybody who has ever been a victim of it’s software or who knows what it does at all hates with a passion.
This is stupid on a number of levels. First, what in hell does Claria even mean? Is there a dictionary definition under the word Claria that means installing your software on other people’s computers without their knowledge like a virus, making it next to impossible to remove, disguising it as something useful and then using that software to track people’s internet surfing habbits, serv pop-up ads to them over sites that didn’t authorize the displaying of those ads as well as gathering personally identifyable information on those same people? If there is then I take it all back, the name change makes perfect sense. However as it is, the only thing that the new name reflects is a company running scared from a bad reputation, one that is very richly deserved.
And that leads to the other problem I have. How stupid do these companies think we are? Do they honestly think that people are going to think that because it’s not Gator serving the ads, but instead it’s Claria installing itself on their computers that it’s ok to allow it to happen without fighting back? Like that conversation is ever gonna happen.
“Hey Dave, help me fix this computer, I’ve got these ads all over it and I never used to have them, I think I got Gator on here somehow.”
“No Bob, that’s Claria, not Gator.”
“Well ok then, guess I can leave it there. Gees, that was close.”
The only thing that this re-branding has done is given us a new name to hate and the same old reasons to hate it. Trust me, people are going to catch on, and they’ll be changing that name to something else in another 5 years. Might I suggest Viral Scum Corporation or how about Unwantedd Commercials Unlimited?
I’ll leave you with this thought. Even if I call it human bi-product fertilization, I still shit on your lawn. The act is more important than the name you give it.