Why did the Zango/CJ thread get moved.

[Head Boy]

Aren't Zango and the other link thieves a major threat to all of us. If they are allowed to continue, then it will lead to the destruction of the affiliate payment system as we know it. That's for adult as well as mainstream.

We need to fight it at all levels, and that includes discouraging adult "webmasters" from selling installs.

[Meat]

seems the mainstream guys put there money where there mouths are

I have left a redirect to the thread, when Adult gets off there ass and does soemthing similar then i promise to leave it on the adult forum

[Meat]

http://www.netpond.com/showthread.php?t=121742

[GTP Dave]

it`ll live longer in the mainstream forum HB...

[Paul Markham]

As I showed very clearly in the thread so long as it's legal and more PROFITABLE, for some to use Adware it will continue to exist.

You might scare a few programs into not accepting the traffic, however as it's been shown some have gone back. Clearly they are not scared enough. They followed the money.

You might encourage a few affiliates that it's in their long term interests to not promote the installing of Adware. Do you see a lot of long term planning and thinking coming from affiliates in the main?

If a guy was looking at opening a site in todays market what would be the best option for him. Go with Adware and cut the costs of opening a site by 80%. Or spend all that money to put his business into the hands of affiliates and pay them through the nose.

The biggest reason sites are going for Adware is affiliates like you HB.

You can rant and rave as much as you like, call them thieves, scum or what ever. The harsh truth is you and affiliates like you make Adware look good. Now start calling me names.

I will not reply to this thread. It's worthless talking to you, you can keep making it tough for sponsors you don't like.

[Head Boy]

For fucks sake read up on Zango Paul. You only heard about it a month ago. I've been posting about affiliate link theft since 2002, and I was offering an anti-virus service in 2000. I wrote an operating system for an ADDS system 70 micro before Bill Gates grabbed the Xerox OS to make MS-DOS, and I did that just out of interest rather than as a commercial venture.

Now go and do some research into affiliate link theft and the illegal stuff (Zango is just one high profile example). Zango generates no traffic itself, it just steals and redirects traffic generated by affiliates like me, and sponsors like you.

[Francis]

Originally Posted by Meat

seems the mainstream guys put there money where there mouths are

I have left a redirect to the thread, when Adult gets off there ass and does soemthing similar then i promise to leave it on the adult forum

Yeah man mainstream dudes put their money where their mouths are those fuckers can afford to with the shit they come out with every month. Maybe tho Meat leavin it here would give some adult folks a reason to get off their asses and start puttin their money where their mouths are too, ya never know man.

[Head Boy]

I don't think paying lawyers is the answer. There are so many Zango type scams going on, that you would never hit all of them - especially the russian ones.

The answer is to educate the surfer, and to provide him with tools to block and remove all these trojans.

[Francis]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

I don't think paying lawyers is the answer. There are so many Zango type scams going on, that you would never hit all of them - especially the russian ones.

The answer is to educate the surfer, and to provide him with tools to block and remove all these trojans.

I hear what you're sayin but prob is unless puters start comin with warnings about adware an shit like that... they do but it's gotta be more than how it's bein done now plus they fuckin load puters up with tons of shit that 90% peeps don't want and never use. Like fukin aol bullshit, if peeps knew how those fuckers sell t-lines and shit to spam they'd have a fuckin stroke.

[Head Boy]

We need to move awareness and responsibility onto the surfer. It's like keeping kids out of porn sites. You can't do it at the server end, but it's a doddle at the surfer's end if we all used meta tags.

[will76]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

As I showed very clearly in the thread so long as it's legal and more PROFITABLE, for some to use Adware it will continue to exist.

You might scare a few programs into not accepting the traffic, however as it's been shown some have gone back. Clearly they are not scared enough. They followed the money.

You might encourage a few affiliates that it's in their long term interests to not promote the installing of Adware. Do you see a lot of long term planning and thinking coming from affiliates in the main?

If a guy was looking at opening a site in todays market what would be the best option for him. Go with Adware and cut the costs of opening a site by 80%. Or spend all that money to put his business into the hands of affiliates and pay them through the nose.

The biggest reason sites are going for Adware is affiliates like you HB.

You can rant and rave as much as you like, call them thieves, scum or what ever. The harsh truth is you and affiliates like you make Adware look good. Now start calling me names.

I will not reply to this thread. It's worthless talking to you, you can keep making it tough for sponsors you don't like.

Come on Paul you have to know better than this. It is all about setting legal precedence. This issue is so "grey" it is really black. But since it hasn't been tested yet in the criminal or civil world people still think it is an "ok" way to do business. The civil arena is much easier to win then trying to get the politicans brought up to date with technology and getting laws in place to hold companies like zango accountable for their practices.

If the affiliates of CJ.com case win, then all other affiliate programs/networks will take notice and stop allowing their affiliates to use zango because there will be a case on the books making it black and white for all future lawsuits. No affiliate company would want to get sued so they will stop.

Sueing Zango would be a little different but that is where an Affiliate program has to step up and sue them and set legal precedence there. If that happens then all other affiliate programs would have cake walks sueing and winning against zango. I know of someone who is in the process of sueing zango so we will see how it goes, if they follow through and ultimatly how they do with it. If there is a case on the books where zango was sued by an affiliate company and lost, in the future when other affiliate companies ask them to stop targeting their domain, zango will have to listen instead of giving them the " fuck you, fuck off" treatment they are giving to affiliate companies right now.

I don't understand you Paul. When it comes to torrent sites and stolen content you blame us and say we need to " meet the depends of the surfer better". When it comes to spyware and stolen sales/signups, you say it is legal and we should stop ranting and raving about it.

What are your solutions and what do you do again, don't you shoot content, own a membership site and affiliate program ??????

[will76]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

I don't think paying lawyers is the answer. There are so many Zango type scams going on, that you would never hit all of them - especially the russian ones.

The answer is to educate the surfer, and to provide him with tools to block and remove all these trojans.

Its tough to find 1 soultion. What is really needed is a combo of everything. First of all laws need to be updated, and civil suits need to be held. This needs to be recognized by all civilized countries, UK, France, Australia, etc.. all need to get on board with these laws.

IMO, the main thing is to follow the money, once it is determined that is illegal, then all legit companies will have to stop using it. Sure you can't go over to russia and shut down a script kiddie working out of mama's basement, but you can cut off his ability to make money. If what he is doing is illegal no one will use it. If he sends traffic to sponsors they will have to be forced to block it and not pay him when his account is banned. Just like how they have to react to spam email. 1 complaint, the affiliate is shut down, if the neglect complaints then they are liable to charges.

Educating the surfer is great but it is next to impossible to put a dent in the problem there. These as the same surfers getting scammed on ebay, or giving out their banking info because they received an email that looked like it was from their bank. I think getting zango type programs on their pc is last of their worries. Good luck with the education part, many of these people are about as smart as a rock.

Technology would be the other big thing, IE needs to make updates, sponsors need to set up stuff to identify possible spyware traffic and cookies being stolen. I am not a programmer so i can't give suggestions how to do this but i am sure some really smart programmers can come up with something.

[Head Boy]

Will - Paul is very new to the concept of Zango, and he hasn't yet worked out that it is stealing his PMT traffic and signups, stealing his cross-sells, and fucking his affiliates.

Give him another month or so and he'll be on your side, because he is anti-theft in his heart.

[will76]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Will - Paul is very new to the concept of Zango, and he hasn't yet worked out that it is stealing his PMT traffic and signups, stealing his cross-sells, and fucking his affiliates.

Give him another month or so and he'll be on your side, because he is anti-theft in his heart.

The sad part is that I think he has been commenting on this for about a year now but i guess he has spent more time commenting on it then educating himself about it.

[will76]

Originally Posted by Francis

Yeah man mainstream dudes put their money where their mouths are those fuckers can afford to with the shit they come out with every month. Maybe tho Meat leavin it here would give some adult folks a reason to get off their asses and start puttin their money where their mouths are too, ya never know man.

I don't think it comes down to putting your money on the line for a suit when it comes to a class action. Pretty sure the people involved with the Cj.com class action are not putting up money... but % of the winnings... i am sure the law firm is going to take a lot.

I will ask around to find out about this.

[Head Boy]

Will again - don't forget that the US legalised spam, Microsoft tried to implement smart tags (a very Zangoish concept), and Verisign tried their traffic theft scam. Zango has already been convicted in the US courts, and they are still a publicly quoted company. PayPal was convicted of what I consider to be fraud, and ordered to pay $600 million in compensation - they are still operating as a quasi-bank, and still up to their old tricks.

Unfortunately the law isn't as much help as one would hope, and it's extremely expensive.

[Francis]

Originally Posted by will76

I don't think it comes down to putting your money on the line for a suit when it comes to a class action. Pretty sure the people involved with the Cj.com class action are not putting up money... but % of the winnings... i am sure the law firm is going to take a lot.

I will ask around to find out about this.

I know that where class actions are goin on, they don't put up money for that the lawyers take a percentage of the winnings. As every individual complaint would be different and complex to figure out each persons cost, easier to do it this way.

Fighting for a cause and sumthin you believe in = putting your money where your mouth is.

[Meat]

Originally Posted by Francis

Yeah man mainstream dudes put their money where their mouths are those fuckers can afford to with the shit they come out with every month. Maybe tho Meat leavin it here would give some adult folks a reason to get off their asses and start puttin their money where their mouths are too, ya never know man.

we were the first people around to get hit by this shit a few years ago when Sextracker started doing it, we did put our money where our mouths were and we got lawyers invovled as soon as we discovered what was going on and it stopped them real quick