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 add-on 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 real-world 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.

Similar attempts rebuffed

When Microsoft revealed earlier this year that its next version of Windows would allow the company to sell keyword-based “Smart Tag” advertisements on other Web sites, the resulting uproar shamed the company into removing that “feature.” Gator and other companies that already pull similar tricks have been spared similar treatment because they don’t enjoy Microsoft’s clout in the marketplace.

But just because Gator isn’t a monopolist doesn’t mean its conduct doesn’t violate the law. Selling ads that look like they’re posted on someone else’s Web site probably amounts to a trademark infringement.

Trademark laws prevent competitors from copying the look and feel of a company’s product, and nothing delivers that look or feel quite like the company’s own site. At the very least, the company is violating Web sites’ copyrights by republishing their content on hacked Web pages that only appear to be their own.

If users were aware this was going on, the company might contend its program is no more illegal than the banner-blocking software some people use to strip ads from Web sites. But Gator’s Web site is vague about what its so-called “Offer Companion” actually does, and most users probably think they’re just getting a handy online wallet.

Gator might seem relatively harmless now. But if the program catches on with a significant percentage of Net users, it will drastically reduce the advertising revenue of the sites actually producing the content Gator users want to see.

CNet says the process of stealing surfers away from the site they’re trying to visit is already known as getting “gatored.” And unless someone steps in to stop this annoying little program and others like it, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to ad-supported content on the Internet.

To contact syndicated columnist Joe Salkowski, you can e-mail him at [email protected] or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611.