WHAT WAS BONZI BUDDY? A BRIEF HISTORY
In 1999, a purple gorilla by the name of Bonzi Buddy, who called himself “your best friend on the Internet,” took the Internet by a storm - but not in a good way. Named after its creators, Joe and Jay Bonzi, Bonzi Buddy was designed to be a digital personal assistant that was similar to Microsoft Word’s Clippy. Bonzi Buddy could read your emails and the webpages you browsed to you through text-to-speech technology as well as keep track of important dates and events coming up. It could also tell jokes to you. Sounds all dandy, right? Most of all, Bonzi Buddy was 100% free to install. There, however, were several red flags that would point to the program being a sheep in wolf’s clothing: Upon installation, users were required to fill out their addresses. For several years the program’s webpage claimed that Bonzi Buddy would only be available for free for a limited amount of time. When the window expired, the price for Bonzi Buddy would increase to $40. The site never revealed when ...
