Harvard Law School Student on Scumware Patrol
Chris Sherman reports in SearchDay that Harvard Law School student Ben Edelman has produced a comprehensive report of which sites Gator targets for popup ads. In Edelman's report, you can drill down to see which sites are being targeted. For example, as is easily documented with Edelman's app, certain search queries on Google will generate Gator pop-ups. One of 700 such terms is "Adipex" - a fat loss drug. Presumably Gator (and indirectly, Overture) sells advertising to pharmaceutical companies and distributors. But do all of these advertisers know that they're using a medium which "trumps" the content produced by legitimate publishers who may be losing revenues from their own ads?
This seems to be unethical (and possibly illegal) on a few levels. If Gator can pop up its own ads on the user's screen when a user types a query like "Adipex," then what does this say about Google's sovereignty over ad revenues derived from publishing the results displayed on Google.com?
Ever wonder why there is no love lost between companies like Overture and Google? Look no further than tactics like "Gatoring" for evidence that the gloves are off.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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