Online 'Wallet' Likely to Pick a Pocketful of Information.

As the economic slowdown drains resources from the dot-com market, online entrepreneurs are digging deeper and deeper in hopes of striking it rich.

If you want to see just how low they'll go, check out Gator.

Gator is one of a number of browser add-ons that try to mine profits from its users' personal information. But instead of relying on this tired trick, it's also trying to carve out a new market based on stealing revenue from other commercial Web sites.

Gator's Web site (gator.com) bills its addon as the "Web's premier digital wallet." The program stores your personal information and credit card number and lets you fill out the forms used by most online stores with a single click. It also stores usernames and passwords and enters them automatically when login windows appear.

These reasonably useful services seem to be the drawing cards that have attracted millions of users to the program. But many Gator customers may not realize there's a few high-tech tricks stuffed into the pockets of their cute little wallets.

For one thing, Gator tracks the sites that users visit and forwards that data back to the company's servers. Gator sells the use of this information to advertisers who can purchase the opportunity to make ads pop up at certain moments, such as when specific words appear on a screen. It also lets companies launch a pop-up ad when users visit a competitor's Web site.

A user visiting Amazon's bookstore might be offered a coupon to purchase books elsewhere, while someone else using Gator to fill in a mailing address at BestBuy.com could be offered a chance to have someone else ship them that new DVD player. It's like having competitors loitering in the aisles of a realworld store, whispering to customers that they'd be better off buying somewhere else.

As if that weren't obnoxious enough, CNet's News.com has reported that new versions of Gator contain the ability to wallpaper over a Web site's advertisements with its own' banner ads. If users visit Yahoo, for example, the ads they see might be replaced with those from Gator's own advertisers.

Gator' s public relations material says the service is designed to serve consumers by delivering ads that, thanks to the company's relentless monitoring, will more accurately target their interests. But you can imagine how the program will be received by commercial Web sites: It barges into their online turf, steals their advertising space and tries to lure their customers away to other sites.