Pop-up ads invade Department of Homeland Security

I just noticed the article in my favorite technological news update website which I find it worrisome. I've always noticed the huge amount of ironic elements in the current US policy - e.g. No Child Left Behind, Clean Air Act - in which the policy name is actually the opposite of the end result of the policy. Talking about it, it just hit me that the appointees to the US's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee is actually one of the world's largest offender in gaining private information from the net.

Pop-up ads invade Department of Homeland Security
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/02/23/gator/index.html?source=RSS

There's a gator guarding your privacy at the Department of Homeland Security.

Among the appointees to the department's 20 member "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" is D. Reed Freeman, the "chief privacy officer" of Claria Corporation.

That's the company formerly known as Gator, infamous for its software, a.k.a. GAIN, which stands for Gator Advertising Information Network. It's sadly familiar to many frustrated Web surfers, who have been surprised to discover it mysteriously installed on their desktops serving them extra helpings of ads.

The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Dow Jones Company sued Gator back in 2002 for the way its ads appeared as parasites on their sites. But even though the original Gator software can be considered one of the original plague carriers of the spyware blight -- be careful about calling it that. The company has repeatedly threatened its critics with libel lawsuits for dubbing it "spyware."

The fact that a "privacy officer" for a company that made its name sneaking onto computers all over the word is now helping to determine what should be done with data collected by the Department of Homeland Security might be alarming to some people. But is it really all that shocking? The D.H.S.'s own chief privacy officer is no stranger to the ins and outs of interactive marketing either. She used to work for the online marketing firm, DoubleClick.

The Privacy Advisory Committee will hold its first meeting April 6, 2005 in Washington D.C. Can pop-up ads promoting every fluctuation in the terror alert level be far behind?

-- Katharine Mieszkowski

If you look at the companies involved - Gater and DoubleClick, its a huge shock. Talking about it, DoubleClick was famous for its tracking cookies that are used to gain information about user's browsing patterns and information without asking the users if they were willing to send info. Gator itself is one of the early pioneers of those pesky spyware applictions that routinely send information from your computer to their servers. Not exactly the right people I want in my neighborhood especially if they deal with my privacy and/or data integrity.

Anyway talking about it, would you prefer a goverment that is clueless about issues and do nothing, or either a goverment that allows unscrupulous individual in ranks of power? Hard to say, I prefer neither :P