Yahoo, Overture and Claria maintain "buddy" relationships with sleazy spyware pop-up advertising

• Yahoo strengthened its new anti-spyware application to detect pop-up advertising software, including that of its longtime partner Claria, formerly known as Gator.
• The Web portal said this week it updated and widely released Anti-Spy, software built into its pop-up blocking toolbar that helps consumers identify nefarious applications known as spyware that can overtake the PC with ads or sniff out personal data such as credit card information.
• The update includes detection for adware, or software that monitors Web surfing behavior to deliver online ads, but which is thought of as a less-threatening cousin to spyware.
• "We listened to the feedback we received from our users during the beta period, and have made a few minor modifications to Anti-Spy," Yahoo spokesman Aaron Ferstman wrote in an e-mail.
• He added that the changes are designed to help people identify programs that are potentially harmful or those that just might need attention.
• However, the move could put stress on Yahoo's longtime partnership with Claria, one of the largest providers and makers of adware, which is detected and flagged for users of Anti-Spy.
• Yahoo subsidiary Overture Services has had an agreement with Claria since 2002 to provide keyword-related text ads to users of Claria's GAIN (Gator Advertising and Information Network) technology.
• The way it works is that Overture's ads appear on GAIN's pop-up windows, called Search Scout, which are triggered when users type in search queries on sites including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and others.
• The ads accounted for as much as 31 percent of Claria's revenue in 2003, or $35.1 million.