[getvisible]

According to Jupiter Research (JUPM ), 12% of companies that advertise online utilize some form of adware marketing. And while analysts estimate adware still represents less than 5% of the Internet ad market, it's growing fast. Claria's revenues jumped 123% in 2003, and smaller adware company 180solutions, in Bellevue, Wash., is expecting sales to rise 156% this year, to $50 million.

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some highlights:

Several studies show that between 60% and 90% of people with adware on their machines aren't sure how it got there or are confused about what it does.

Half of all people that receive Claria's adware product, for example, uninstall the software within the first month, the company says. This continual attrition forces adware companies to step up the battle for footholds in more computers.

As it now stands, Claria's Gator program is on 43 million machines, WhenU is on 25 million PCs, and 180solutions reaches 30 million, according to the companies.

. Of the 26 major advertisers that BusinessWeek called for this story, 18 declined to comment on their adware marketing or did not return calls.

Few companies have done more to prop up the adware industry than Yahoo. A deal with Claria enables Yahoo to push its search-related ads to millions of users -- even when they're typing key words into a rival's search engine.

PLEASE PULL YOUR ADVERTISING FROM YAHOO!!!!

Why is Yahoo willing to risk bad press? Perhaps profits. SEC documents indicate that Yahoo's Overture division claimed 36% of revenue from such ventures at the time of the Claria deal early last year. That would bring in $24 million in revenue if the partnership matches last year's performance.

Any dramatic shift in practices will have to be prompted by advertisers themselves.

I feel sick to the pit of my stomach that Yahoo! are actively using adware.

I just found this!! It's even worse! They provide a "adware remover" - but guess what? It ignores the two most popular versions:

Yahoo's new browser toolbar is advertised to clean out adware and spyware from the user's PC and from the sound of it is a good tool to rely on. Not so, says eWeek, whose Matt Hicks notices that Yahoo excludes two popular adware/spyware applications - Claria (ex-Gator) and WhenU.com, which have commercial bonding with Yahoo! Inc.

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Yahoo's Overture division, a leading provider of paid search listings, contributed 31 percent of Claria's 2003 revenues