• by Bill McCloskey , February 1, 2002

Lately it seems that all the MediaPost writers have been scribble, scribble, scribbling about the online advertising world’s enfant terrible, Gator. In the past, I’ve been one of Gator’s most vocal critics, for a number of reasons. In fact, the pressure has been so great that recently when I sat next to Gator’s head of sales at an Ad Club panel discussion in New York, I think people came expecting bloodshed. (Or maybe it was just my imagination that the crowd was all wearing WWF tee shirts.)

Well there was no bloodshed and I actually had a pretty civil discussion with the Gator folks right after. So much so that I’m pleased to report that much of what I have complained about regarding Gator has been corrected. And with good reason: Gator wants to be a long-term player and it is in their self-interest to see the industry (and here I’m talking about the “client-side software” industry) is above reproach. I’ll get into the reasons why in a second, but first let’s look at the charges I leveled against them back in September and what the company has done since that time.

One of the biggest charges I laid at Gator’s doorstep was a startling lack of sensitivity around privacy. According to their Privacy Policy back then, not only were they storing things like email, zip, IP address, and first names on their servers, there was also a provision that allowed them to take last names, home phone numbers, home address -even credit card info - if the user signed on to some unspecified optional services.

This is gone. Gator no longer takes email address, and all the rest has been jettisoned from their Privacy Policy statements. Servers have been purged of past email addresses, and now every piece of info is associated with an anonymous Guid (General User ID): no personally identifiable info is associated with a user of the Gator wallet. This is a great step forward.

The next issue was the replacement of publisher’s ads with Gator ads. This also has been tossed out and Gator is now actively trying to work with publishers, as witnessed by the recent reversal in their relationship with the IAB.

Furthermore, Gator not only clearly labels their ads, but their presence as well on the user’s machine, so that no user will be “tracked” unawares and always has an easy opt-out off the product. All of this is good and I applaud them.

And now we get to the part where I explain why Gator had to enact these changes and why it is vital that they lead the charge in self-policing the client-side software industry: This stuff is not just powerful. It is dangerously powerful. I know. I spent years developing and distributing this type of software. It is the reason I’ve been such a vocal critic of Gator, and why I’m encouraging them in their efforts to do the right thing.

And once these programs are downloaded, they can do some powerful stuff. (I’m speaking generically here now, not about a specific program: but there are widely distributed programs out there right now that can do what I describe if they wanted to). Some can identify the words you are reading, highlight key ones and create hyperlinks that were never created by the publisher. Some can take the ad at the top of the page and move it to the bottom, or get rid of it all together. Or replace it with a competitor’s ad, seamlessly and silently, and the user, who may not be aware that the software is even loaded on their machine, may not be the wiser.

Imagine a software company that starts out with good intentions, flush with VC money. They pay the piper and distribute millions of copies of their software across millions of user’s machines. This is not difficult. I’ve done it. It just takes money. But no worries: life is good and principles are high.

Now imagine that same company: cob webs in the corners, Marley’s Ghost is rattling chains in the hall, hollow cheeked engineers are lined up waiting for the ax. Suddenly Mr. Advertising Big Shot comes along and says to the chastened software developer: “All you have to do is make sure that my competitor’s ads are wiped off the Internet and replaced with my ads and here is a big bag of money.”

The company might be tempted.

This isn’t science fiction. This could happen right now. And that is something that Gator can’t afford to happen. That is why Gator wants to set standards in this industry and why its in their best interests to do so. Client-side software isn’t going away and so I loudly and publicly endorse Gator’s efforts to clean up their act and the act of others.

-- Bill McCloskey is Founder and CEO of Emerging Interest, an organization dedicated to educating the Internet advertising and marketing industry about rich media and other emerging technologies.