Previous message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-02446.html
Latest Gator privacy statement:
http://www.gator.com/help/privacy_license-2.6.html
Below message forwarded with Ian's permission. I invite Gator
representatives (copied above) to reply.
-Declan
********
From: Ian Hiebert <ihiebert_at_bmcd.com>
To: "'sginsburg_at_iab.net'" <sginsburg_at_iab.net>
Cc: "'declan_at_well.com'" <declan_at_well.com>
Subject: RE: Gator Sues Interactive Advertising Bureau -- IAB --
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:22:30 -0700
Just in case anyone is interested, we have had serious issues with the
Gator software on our networks and have banned it's use completely &
blocked all of Gator's servers & websites! We found that in addition to
having a vague declaration in the EULA of what the Gator software actually
does, ( most of our users were quite surprised when they were told ) we
found when monitoring our network traffic that the gator software
continually sends data from the users PC to their servers ( and to 3rd
party servers not owned by Gator.com )even when they weren't browsing the
web. When we contacted Gator about this we asked to speak to an engineer
but instead were contacted by someone in their PR dept. who simply quoted
the information contained in the EULA. Not satisfied with that, we
continued testing & discovered through packet capture & decoding that the
software searches & sends not only Gator cookies, but other companies
cookies to their servers as well. We then contacted about this, and have
not received a response to date !
We realize there are other companies doing this, but none have been as
vocal in denying their software's underhanded activity as Gator.com has
been. We will continue to block Gator.com & its associated servers, and
their advertisers, and any other web tricks they come up on all our
corporate networks, & urge others to do the same until Gator.com & others
like it get the message.
- "If they want to use our networks for advertising & market research,
they need to get our permission first & they need to start compensating us
for it !"
Thank you -
Ian Hiebert
IT Manager
British Motor Car Distributors, LTD.
Qvale Automotive Group
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Received on Sep 06 2001
Intro
