Behavioral marketing and adware firm Claria has severed its relationship with file-sharing service Kazaa, its controversial distribution partner, MediaPost and ClickZ report. The move comes as details were leaked of acquisition talks between Microsoft and Claria - and days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Grokster case that peer-to-peer networks could be held accountable for encouraging copyright infringement by their users.

Claria's Chief Marketing Officer, Scott Eagle, said the company's decision was not related to the ruling in the Grokster case but was, instead, "just another move in the evolution of the company, as we are growing the behavioral business" - which is likely what Microsoft is most interested in.

He also said the end of its relationship with Kazaa signals Claria's "migration to work with more mainstream publishers." That, in turn, might indicate some sort of software distribution partnership with Microsoft.

The confounding of adware with spyware, which has resulted in legal actions against both spyware and adware firms, has prompted Claria to take measures to de-emphasize its adware business, including eliminating some of the most controversial methods in use by the industry. Instead, in recent months it has focused on behavioral targeting and web analytics efforts.