Thanks to Robert Moskowitz for helping us understand Claria’s new Personal Web technology.  Moskowitz does a great job of summarizing the value proposition when he said:

“Imagine your best friend, a skilled reference librarian, watching you surf the Web and—by noting what you stop to read and what you bypass—continually offering you lots of additional, in-depth content you might not easily find on your own.”

In a world of already happy consumers who use Yahoo, Google Sidebar, ISP’s like Earthlink and a plethora of others to create personalized “home pages” that offer news and information content Claria believes they want more… they demand a more personalized experience.  Users simply aren’t happy with their “home pages” because they’re static and too difficult to update. 

As an example, says Scott Eagle, Claria’s chief marketing officer, wants his “home page” to collect email from two different providers (do people want to use a “home page” to centralize email? really?) and let him check Expedia (why not just go to Expedia?).  Eagle also wants it to reflect his current interests and offer new topics he might enjoy.  Finally, he wants the “home page” to not display content he’s no longer reading (hello… RSS!).  Finally, he says he wants manual control over all this.  Does any of this sound remotely familiar (as in, do users already have this tool)?

As I see it, there are few reasons why Claria is bound to fail.  First of all, they’re Claria and come with one heck of a tarnished image—especially in the “power user” category (people who might want to do all the nifty things his application will do).  Can MicroSoft have some kind of impact on this… and what’s in it for them now that the courtship is over?

Claria is choosing to do battle with some heavy hitters (Google, Yahoo, ISPs of all flavors, anyone employing RSS to update personalized content… which is just about everyone these days, etc.) and more importantly they’re not sure who the tool is aimed at.  I come to this conclusion based on Eagle’s comments which seem to signal both power users and dear old dial-up dad. 

The real wrench in the proverbial engine?  Privacy.  The nation is virtually burning advertisers at the stake and everyone from the FTC to Congress is heavily involved in protecting privacy.  Congress has only fueled citizen’s privacy concerns with passage of the Patriot Act and big business seems to be forever losing reems of financial data on consumers.  Identity fraud has us running scared… and along comes Claria’s success story?  Really?

Claria seeks to earn the trust of a nation that rejects even the most well-crafted, thinly disguised attempts at providing free tools or information in exchange for the opportunity to offer them “tailored advertising.” There’s always a catch and privacy concerns have never been greater.  Can a once trusted (remember the Gator wallet?) known prime offender give itself a new name and earn the trust of a privacy-centric nation?  Doubtful.  Tivo… now that is control.  Show me some commercials, please, and give me access to everything available on TV, cable and the Web—on my schedule.