Who Owns Your Computer?

This is item is from May, but regardless, have a look:

,----[ Quote ]
| "For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy Claria, an
| adware marketer formerly called Gator, and best known for its pop-up ads
| and software that tracks people visiting Web sites..."
`----

[H]omer...

Wow! I haven't been keeping tabs on /. for a while, so I missed that.

I realise that MS have no qualms about deploying Spyware by stealth
(WGA), for the purposes of draconian control, but I had no idea they
were planning a brazen full assault of Spyware-driven data harvesting,
for marketing purposes.

The first, last and only time I ever encountered "Gator" was in an
earlier release of "GetRight". It was Malware then and it's Malware
now, which is why the GetRight developer rejected it (and all other
forms of Malware) in subsequent releases of GetRight.

And in particular:

Handover Phist...

Well well well, MS is going to take over the clandestine operations of
the adware underground. Good for them. People will migrate to other
platforms in droves. Good time to buy stock in Apple and RedHat!

Best wishes,