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The downside of HotBar is that it will display advertising on your computer. These ads display a small legend advising they may not originate on the Website you are visiting. This means they are being displayed either from within your computer or by a server that plays ads to your computer. This also means that your computer must play an active part in the process.
All of this raises two important questions. First, how will your computer be involved in the process of displaying ads? Second, what kind of data is being collected and how will it be used? Companies such as Double Click and Engage serve up millions of ads per day, place cookies on your computer, and collect data about your surfing habits. Much of their work is done via cookies and much of the data they collect is anonymous. These companies were not invited into your computer and thus their activities are a bit restricted. When you agree to use HotBar you agree to let their servers collect data from you. Unlike the other ad server companies, you have invited HotBar inside your computer and you have agreed to be a part of the marketing process. Your computer could become a mini-server, providing real-time information to the marketing folks at HotBar and possibly causing some degradation in your computer's performance. Advertisers use cookies to track whatever information they can retrieve from from your computer. In most cases this information cannot be related to your personal information, i.e., charge card numbers and passwords, but you can never be sure of that. Even if it does not happen today it could happen tomorrow. You would have to review the Terms of Use regularly for every program you use to determine if something undesirable might be happening with your blessing. Steve Gibson has an excellent article on a privacy problem. He purchased a program for copying files that could remember where the transfer ended if it was interrupted. He paid for the program on a secure Website, furnishing personal information as part of the purchase. When he used the program to transfer files between two of his own servers he discovered some of his personal information was being sent to a third server via an unsecured link. His discovery ultimately led to a lawsuit and now most companies are displaying their privacy policies quite plainly. Speaking of privacy, let's analyze the first paragraph of HotBar's Terms of Use statement, reproduced below.
According to the first sentence of the opening paragraph, HotBar will track the Web pages you view and things you search for. In other words, they want to know the types of Websites you visit and the types of data you like to find. This is reasonable, given that they have given you the software at no cost, as long as they are not intrusive about it.
The next sentence tells what they will do with this information. In short, they will customize the appearance of the toolbars placed on your browser and e-mail client and they will display advertising on them, or in your browser window.
This could be a little more problematic. If the ads are displayed from within your computer then they have to get there somehow. This means that a process much check to see what you have seen and then deliver ads you have not seen. If those ads are stored on your hard drive then it must also organize that information. This will use the processing power and the disk space from your computer. Further into the agreement there are two statements we find both reassuring and troublesome. It is reassuring to know that the personal information collected (name and e-mail address) are not used for advertising purposes. It is troublesome to know that they collect this type of information at all. The parts we find troublesome are highlighted in red.
So, the personally identifiable information that is collect is not used to display ads but it is stored somewhere. Unfortunately, that policy is subject to change, as you will see if you read further into the Terms of Use agreement.
Further into the agreement you will find HotBar's Privacy Policy. It contains standard language explaining how other companies such as Double Click and Engage will be involved in marketing to you. Note that information concerning your visits to Websites will be noted and advertising targeted to you. This is not much different from what happens any time you visit a Website. Note that cookies will be placed on your computer and read from it, and that "pixel tags", also called "Web bugs", may be used to track your surfing habits. Again, there is not much unusual about this. A free program called Bugnosis identifies Web bugs that you receive, to the point that it can become rather obtrusive since there are so many of them. They are certainly not unique to HotBar. As with all visits to Websites, you may be offered the opportunity to sign up to receive information via e-mail. In other words, if you don't read the fine print you may be placed on a number of spam lists.
Conclusion Is HotBar a real value or is it a form of intrusion you can live without? We know one very satisfied user. She has noticed that her computer may be running a little more slowly but it is quite usable. She really doesn't mind the advertising since there is so much of it out there anyway. HotBar claims to have millions of satisfied users and she is one of them. HotBar is very open about telling prospective users that they are collecting marketing data, that they will be providing advertisements, and how they will be doing it. One would wish that there more such companies out there! The fact that they are involved in "marketing" and that they "collect personal information" is not sinister or evil. It is how marketing people sell their products. HotBar is a tool that helps them sell advertising. Unfortunately HotBar is not as open about promoting their product. All of your e-mail messages may go out with a tag at the bottom offering what appears to be an upgrade to Outlook. In reality this is not a Microsoft-approved upgrade, it is just a pitch to get you to install HotBar without telling you what it is. Since your name is at the top this lends an air of authenticity to the advertisement at the bottom. Marketing sells products and services and thus creates jobs along the way. The main difference between HotBar and other forms of marketing is that you voluntarily participate in the process by making your computer available to the marketers. If you choose to use HotBar, and if you keep abreast of the latest Terms of Use, your privacy should remain relatively secure. Note that some marketing companies place "adbots" and "spyware" on your computer without your permission by bundling it with free software. Some unscrupulous companies try to force a "drive-by download" of their product. Some Websites initiate a download automatically without your permission. We cannot count the number of times we have had a message pop up asking us to complete downloading "Gator" or "Comet Cursor" without our having initiated the process.
You must decide whether you want to participate in the marketing business in order to obtain something of value at no cost. If you can tolerate possible computer slowdowns, if you don't object to advertisements, and if you don't care that they are collecting personal data from you, then this could be a good deal.
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