Bits and Bytes for March 29, 2004

German Court Blocks Claria Pop-Ups

Claria Corp. has been prohibited by a German court from using its software to place advertising, including pop-up and pop-under ads, on the Web site of the Hertz Corporation’s German vehicle rental subsidiary, Hertz Autovermietung GmbH.

The Court of First Instance in Cologne issued a preliminary injunction this week against Claria Corp., better known by its previous name, Gator, prohibiting it from using its software to place advertising including pop-up ads on the Web site. A similar judgment was levied against Gator this December, though decisions in other court cases have gone Gator’s way.

The court, in its preliminary judgment, ruled that Claria must stop “placing or allowing the placement of software-controlled automatic advertisements” on Hertz’s Internet page without Hertz’s consent.

---

Interwoven and DoubleClick Partner Up

DoubleClick, the dominant provider of marketing tools for advertisers, is teaming up with Interwoven, a major player in the enterprise content management space, to offer a comprehensive marketing content management solution.

Under the agreement, Interwoven will offer DoubleClick’s SmartPath 5.0 to extend its marketing content management capabilities. SmartPath is a marketing relationship management software application that helps marketers manage campaigns and budgets across all channels, including print and television. The tool manages strategic planning, project management, workflow, document management and financial management.

DoubleClick acquired SmartPath earlier in March.

---

Chitika Launches RealContext, Content And Behavior Ad Targeting

Proving once again that context is everything (or at least critically important), Chitika, Inc., a developer of on-demand contextual targeting services, has released RealContext, a real-time content and behavior-based ad-targeting service.

The RealContext matching engine includes a feedback loop that actively monitors users’ behavior. In real time, it adapts the ads displayed according to the likes and dislikes of consumers, also matching the ads to their interests.

“If you have the same news story on two different sites, one whose audience includes sports fanatics and the other that attracts financial enthusiasts, RealContext will show different ads. It chooses the most relevant ads based on the content of the Web page, as well as what works best for consumers,” claimed Venkat Kolluri, Chitika’s co-founder and CEO.