Gator have been suing to stop their name being associated with the term "spyware." In "See you later, anti-Gators?" at News.com, Paul Festa reports:

'In response to a libel lawsuit, an antispyware company has settled with Gator and pulled Web pages critical of the company, its practices and its software. And other spyware foes are getting the message.

"There is this feeling out there that they won the lawsuit, and people are starting to get scared," said one employee of a spyware-removal company, who asked not to be named. "We haven't been sued, but we've heard that other companies are being sued for saying this and that, so we've changed our language" on the company Web site... '

...Companies like Gator are the Goliath that average computer users are up against in the war for online privacy," Ed English, CEO of InterMute, said last month.'

Personally I detest pop up ads, whatever you call them. I'm no fan of the surreptitious collection of personal data either.

The Australian ISP that has been sued by the music industry is denying that it acted as a host for copyright infringing files.