Hedging Spyware Investments With Anti-Spyware Ones?

from the one-way-to-build-a-market... dept

Wed, Mar 16th 2005 2:18am — Mike Masnick

A bit of an amusing discussion on a couple of blogs over the past few days. VC Jeff Nolan pointed out that fellow VCs Technology Crossover Ventures appeared to have invested in well-known ~~spyware~~ crapware vendor ~~Gator~~ Claria as well as anti-spyware vendor Webroot. As Nolan points out, that's one way to hedge. The reporters over at Silicon Beat did what reporters do and checked in with TCV to get the full story, which is basically that TCV invested in Gator's early days when they were just a web wallet, not a ~~spyware~~ crapware company -- and they no longer have any real connection to the company. In fact, they joke that they'd love to dump the shares if they could. Of course, that still doesn't explain why they dumped so much into a company that has plenty of competition -- most of it offered for free. It's hard to say which investment looks less appealing.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

2 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Ben Edelman, 18 Mar 2005 @ 10:40am

What did TCV know, and when did they know it?
Here's the problem with TCV's argument:
TCV says they invested in Gator "several years ago when the company was The Gator Corporation and played in the e-wallet market." The suggestion is that Gator's business has changed completely -- that when TCV invested in Gator, Gator was just an e-wallet company, not a spyware/adware company, not a pop-up ad company. (The implication: TCV wouldn't have invested in Gator had TCV known about Gator's monitoring and advertising plans.)
Is it true that Gator's monitoring and advertising weren't known as of 2000? I don't think so. See http://web.archive.org/web/19991105021622/www.gator.com/help/eula.html , archiving Gator's EULA as of November 1999. "Gator.com will seek out high-value offers and great deals from commercial partners that match your interests. Gator.com will provide this Service to you via email or through 'GatorGrams' or another proprietary instrument of Gator.com." Lots of euphemisms here. But the underlying practice is clear: Gator will watch what users do, and show advertisements ("offers") accordingly.
Fact is, TCV invested in Gator at a time when available public information indicated what Gator had in mind. There may or may not be a genuine conflict -- e.g. a PR problem -- between TCV's investment in Gator and its investment in Webroot. But I don't see how TCV can claim that the Gator they invested in wasn't the Gator we all now know. The written record indicates otherwise.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
brianna (profile), 7 Jul 2009 @ 4:57am

Hello
Hello this is brianna visiting first time to this site and need to join this for continue these discussions.I really like all the contents present on this site. -------------- brianna foreclosure auctions
[ link to this | view in thread ]