Claria GAIN: Going...Going....Gone! Claria software, which announced back in March that it is getting out of the adware business, posted notices to users of its GAIN service that it will stop working on July 1, 2006. As of that date, folks with the GAIN pop-up advertising wares installed will actually stop receiving pop-ups.(Pop-ups discontinued? This must be a first.) However, the company will still collect Web use data until October 1, 2006, Claria said. Claria is focusing on a new service it calls “PersonalWeb” that allows consumers to customize their Web experience (whatever that means), and raked in US $40 million in VC to fund that effort back in April. To an untrained ear, PersonalWeb sounds an awful lot like My Yahoo! and all the other customized Web portal services. You can “automatically create a custom Home Page for every user.” The difference, I suppose, is that PersonalWeb monitors your surfing behavior and updates your page with links to things that seem to be related to your interests. So i guess its like if you went out shopping, and then all the stores where you browsed got to follow you home and set up little kiosks on your lawn…am I wrong here?? Technology Industry