Claria Decides That Calling Its Pop-Ups Pop-Ups Is A Bit Too Descriptive

from the let's-be-a-little-less-transparent dept

As the various adware providers try to go more "legit" they keep talking about the importance of "transparency" and "honesty" over what they're doing. Of course, in the past, we've wondered if all that transparency and honesty makes it difficult to make money. Perhaps Claria thinks so. Ben Edelman has noticed that the initial install screen they present to people, which is the only screen users see before they install the program, has recently changed to remove the word "pop-up" from the description of what you're getting. Edelman goes through a variety of reasons why they might do this, including pointing to their new behavioral advertising effort that shows traditional banner ads (though, the behavioral targeting is still based on installed adware), but notes that the software does, indeed, still show plenty of pop-ups. So much for transparency. Apparently it doesn't mix well with certain business models.