Lars, while I am not usually one to tell someone more successful than me what to do, this is one of those rare occassions where I can see that between what Zango has fed you and what the lawyers are probably telling you, that you have been filled with grade A bullshit. I don't think you would intentionally spew such nonsense if someone hadn't convinced you that it is true.
Let's start with Zango: They don't have "willing customers", but rather people who have sold their souls so they could download a video or play a game. In many cases, people do not clearly understand what they are doing or the implications of that "click here to play" button. I looked at Zango's install, they are pretty detailed, but they are also doing it with the old "free ginzu steak knives" promotion. I can't think that anyone would willingly and directly install Zango without some other material benefit, and I personally don't think their material benefits are worth a lifetime of popup bullshit.
You also don't have to go far to find Zango listed as spyware, scumware,or malware. Searching google for "zango spyware" would get you a page like this:
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/p...x?id=453094136
Searching for Zango removal problems woudl get your this:
http://www.411-spyware-remove.com/remove-zango/
Including:
[quote]# Zango is Adware more
# Zango monitors searches and websites visited more
# Zango displays ads while surfing more
# Zango may come bundled with other Malware more
# Zango may recreate, repair and update itself[quote]
You could have just consulted wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_Solutions
Now, I don't have to be a wizard to find these things, and I am sure that before you spent a "small part" of your advertising budget with these people, that you might have at least looked to see what they were about. Considering situations may have happened in the past, you would think that you wouldn't want to do business with a company that the subject of any number of FTC complaints.
Okay, well, let's say that you didn't take a minute before approving the check for Zango... but then you had to go through their system and bid, and no doubt you (or one of your minions) would have caught on that they were bidding FOR YOUR DOMAIN (.cams.com) to push out others. I would suspect that a little light might have come on in someone's head and realized that perhaps this is just paying a form of blackmail to keep people off your customers (and potential customers).
Okay, so now you have said "we ain't paying them no more"... now sexsearch is "borrowing" your customers.
The question is simple: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? It is clear to me that Zango is engaging in an activity (trigger by domain) that could be interfering with a business relations (affiliate to sponsor) by presenting other offers in popup windows that cover the original site. While this does not "replace a cookie" for surfers going to AFF/Cams, it puts a valid and viable alternative marketplace to these surfers. If they are going to make only one purchase today, there is a huge potential that they will buy what they see first, not from the now buried affiliate window.
Get your lawyers off their asses and start the process. There is enough past cases that you could very validly ask zango to stop targeting your domain(s). Further, I would contact Sexsearch and say "hey guys, nice try... but you may be interfering in a business relationship, so you might want to stop buying zango keywords".
You may also want to put javascript or other on your pages triggered every few seconds to move the window that your program opens in to being the top window.... which would push zango's stuff to the rear.
Finally, you may want to open up any number of other domains to allow affiliates to send their traffic through different domains so as to avoid this type of situation. A new domain every week or two might be a nice way to allow us all to avoid trigger off zango's domain filters.
Remember Lars, domain filters most specifically hurt your business for typeins and return customers. When any of the millions of people with zango "happily" installed comes to your site, the very first thing they see isn't hot cam girls, but a sex search page (and if you are unlucky, they might also see a competitive cams page). Your ability to deal with your repeat customers is being impeded.
I trust that you will have a sit down with the lawyers and take some action before this pretty much forces all of the smaller affiliates to move away from your program(s).
Alex