Claria

So Claria, the infamous spyware company formerly know as Gator, has hired a former FTC Consumer Protection Attorney as their "Chief Privacy Officer".

On the surface, this looks like a good thing, and might indeed result in some increased privacy protections for the individuals that are trapped in the GAIN network, but pardon me if I'm skeptical.

Claria has just announced that they are filing an IPO. One of the issues that is certain to come up will be the mountain of privacy concerns that people have raised about Claria, so they need to demonstrate some action. Hiring a lawyer from the FTC says to me that they are more interested in covering their butts than in really working with the consumer.

I will howerver, maintain a partly-open mind. (Kind of like a partly-cloudy day) If I see things improve, then I'll be happy. But right now, I think that this is just a corporate-level attempt to disguise what they're really up to, and look like they're taking action, without having to do much.