This has to be bunk, right? Could Microsoft seriously be interested in buying Claira (Gator)?

This is sure to have ripples across the industry: Microsoft has been pursuing controversial adware company Claria (fka Gator), according to this NYT story. The offer price on the table as recently as yesterday was $500 million, but the talks might break off, says the story.
Apparently there is internal conflict within Microsoft on the legitimacy of buying the company with such a murky past. CEO Steve Ballmer has been pushing Yusuf Mehndi, the senior VP in charge of MSN and Microsoft’s search business, to be more aggressive in closing the gap with Google, including making acquisitions, the story says, and he gave the go ahead to negotiate the deal.
Claria is moving beyond pop-ups to personalized services, like delivering local weather information and distributing software that lets Web publishers offer personalized pages. It seems as if Microsoft would probably be most interested in the long-term potential of Claria’s personalization software rather than its pop-up ads.
Early last year, Claria had filed for an IPO, but nothing really came out of it…
For some more background, read this February story from News.com: “Firm formerly known as Gator looks for credibility” [Read the rest]