BonziBuddy: The Purple Gorilla That Spied on Early Internet Users

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Around the turn of the millennium, millions of people downloaded a free desktop companion that told jokes, sang songs, recited trivia, and managed downloads. BonziBuddy, from Joe and Jay Bonzi's Bonzi Software, launched in 1999 as a green parrot named Peedy, a stock character from the Microsoft Agent technology the whole program was built on. In May 2000 the parrot gave way to Bonzi, a purple gorilla with a synthetic voice labeled Adult Male #2. This episode follows how a virtual pet became what one publication called the scourge of the internet.

Keeping the gorilla talking cost money, and the company found it in its users. The software tracked browsing habits, reset the Internet Explorer home page to Bonzi.com, and installed a browser helper object that could watch every address visited. Its ads imitated Windows system alerts to frighten people into buying security products. Lawsuits and federal regulators followed, and so, years later, did an unlikely second life as a meme.

• Clippy ran on the same Microsoft Agent engine, yet BonziBuddy found an audience because it was sold as entertainment for a web that still felt lonely and technical.
• Consumer Reports WebWatch labeled it spyware in 2002, and Trend Micro and Symantec classified it as adware and malware.
• A December 2002 class action targeted pop-ups styled as Windows warnings whose close button was a fake: clicking anywhere led to a sales page for products like InternetALERT. A May 2003 settlement forced the ads to look like ads.
• On February 18, 2004, the FTC ordered Bonzi Software to pay $75,000 for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data from users under 13.
• The software was discontinued in 2004 and the website shut down in late 2008. PC World readers voted it the sixth most annoying tech product of all time in April 2007.