Adult Friend Finder position statement
 

AdultFriendFinder from time to time as a small part of its advertising budget places ad buys with companies which some people might call ?adware?. Adware is software that is installed on a user?s computer with notice and consent by the user. In some instances such adware will use contextual ads - for example it may scan web pages for references to certain keywords and then pop up relevant ads from its advertisers. Typical keywords for AdultFriendFinder may include ?dating? and ?friend?. One of the motivating factors in AdultFriendFinder placing such adware ads is to effectively compete in the online dating marketplace - namely if AdultFriendFinder does not place such ads our competitors will make deals with the adware companies to place such ads to our detriment.

It has come to our attention that some affiliates are unhappy about some uncommon and unintended side effects of adware advertising ? in some instances the adware will scan a web page and pop up an ?in context? AdultFriendFinder ad in a browser window next to an affiliate?s ad for AdultFriendFinder in another browser window. This scenario certainly makes us uncomfortable and creates a catch-22 for us ? if we stop buying the contextual adware ads our competitors? sites will pop up and we may lose sales and if we keep buying adware ads we may find from time to time our ads will pop up near our affiliate?s ads for our sites.

While it is perfectly legal for us to place ads with internet software providers like adware companies, specialized browser providers, and search engines that place our ads near our affiliates ads (for example this happens often with keyword buys on search engines) this notion of the adware ad ?collisions? that has recently been raised does make us feel somewhat uncomfortable ? in other words we find ourselves sympathetic with those who have not been happy with this bizarre result.

So we decided to look further into the adware issue. While we are at least partially at the mercy of the programmatic techniques of the given adware companies we are already exploring and experimenting with technology solutions to try to figure out ways to reduce the number of ?adware collisions?. Our primary method of tracking affiliate traffic is not by using cookies (as has been wrongly suggested on some board postings) but rather by coded URLs ? this may have to change. Suffice it to say that for now we appreciate the comments that have been made on the boards to date by our affiliates (yes even the adverse ones) and we will attempt to address this unforeseen consequence of adware ad buys in the near future. If AdultFriendFinder affiliates have any comments or proposed solutions you may e-mail me at lars at legendarylars.com

some people might call “adware” Thats too funny lol

Okay, so what exactly are you doing about it?

Regards,

Lee

sig spot.

it's not cool to support companies that steal from me.

:2 cents:

Good to see a response to the topic, though I'm not sure it'll be a popular one.

a few years ago - it was perfectly legal to own slaves.


was that right?

kind of what i expected in a response.

http://www.gfy.com/fucking-around-and-business-discussion/663524-hey-lars-cams-com-sexsearch-stealing.html

The fact that you would choose to support adware makes me sick... thats all I can say. I don't care wether you have to use it to compete or not, the fact that you choose to support such shady tactics shows the kind of business ethic you have.

can't blame him,,, when i worked doing traffic for several big name sex toy comapnies .. we used 180 solutions at the time.. they requested competition urls and search strings.. i found when they got the deep pockets the companies just bid over everyone to keep on top...my 2cents

I would not say support I would more say forced into read this

Damn and I was hoping you were going to link to this one:

Thats the beauty of life: you always have a choice.

You made the choice to support adware.

So if I outbid you for your domains on Zango, you'd be cool with that? :)

This way, the problem can be brought 'back in house' before someone else uses those shady tactics to steal from your affiliates. Uhhhhh... right?

Which one of you is forcing Lars to support adware?

Lars,

With all the money you make why even spend a small part of your advertising budget on adware? I don't understand.

yes! I'll get a rope!

Lars,

I understand your point of view here. You are buying traffic from many sources and it makes sense that you would target your own keywords. What you have to understand is that the "adware traffic source" will always collide with your "affiliate traffic source". You are doing one to the detriment of the other.

Why? Because it is your affiliate pages that will in 99% of the situation trigger your adware campaign thus "stealing" sales from your affiliates.

i was expecting the "rogue employee" defense

I wouldn't care if company A was stealing from company B, if they didn't have any affiliates.

But when A & B get into a pissing war, the affiliates are the ones that lose. Not fair to the people who make the money.

Hell personally, when a company has THOUSANDS of affiliates why are they even advertising in the first place, why are they competiting with their affiliates. I could understand if a company had a couple hundred affiliates. I know if I had a company that made millions and had thousands of affiliates I wouldn;t be buying an ads myself. Where can that company advertise that his affiliates are already not advertising? Everywhere they buy ads they are competiting with their affiliates. It's not like they dont make a ton of off all the branding that affiliates are doing for them or all the type in traffic they get. I am not just talking about AFF either, all big companies. It would piss me off if i go to buy ad words and the COMPANY has the spot above me, god knows they have more of a profit margin to work with and advertising budget then i do. That seems more like a major conflict of interest as well.

I am not picking on AFF, is there any sponsors here that do over a million in afiliate sales a month that doesn't advertise for themselves ?

I just spent 200$ on them.

The first and the last time.

*Just dont worth it.

Your a trip lol looking forward to hangin with you tomorrow night.

I hoping to hear more on how the "database" burped again.

The problem is not with AFF buying traffic and advertising their services themselves, every company do that - they'd be idiot not to.

The problem is that the adware campaigns are triggerd in 99% of the cases by pages made by their affiliates - thus "stealing" traffic.

I would guess its alot cheaper than paying a affiliate in the long run, affiliates are expensive.

Im trying to help Lars out here. He says he was forced so I want to know whos doing it and why.

FREE LEGENDARY LARS!!!

Hey Lars..
My opinions aside..

It appears to me you have been informed of what is really going on by other people, and that information is full of bullshit.

I would gladly educated on what the real problem is and why it is illegal for your company to be involved with forced adware installs, just drop me an ICQ.

* With an equal or greater purchase. Not a stackable coupon. Cash value 1/10th of 1c, except where stolen.

So basically you are buying your affiliates traffic from these guys for cheap? Real classy move. You guys sure care about your affiliates.

Yeah! what i heard from all the other threads is that the cookie bought in adwords got updated to a zango ad. that suck for sure.

AFF and/or cams.com is making a statement about buying ads on a network that provide a disfontion on an internet maketing.

The smartest thing to do right now is to get a way for our cookies to remain a certain periods, there is threads about that.

imo

Im sitting on the fence with this one - but I would like to hear some ideas from people how Lars can solve his problem....

AFF is the biggest dating site on the net and he wants to keep it that way.

How can he do that if he cant use the same tools as his competition?

Read it again we use URL tracking not Cookies

in the interest of affiliates, honesty and integrity could you please provide a list all the "adware" companies you support so webmasters can make sure they are not affected?

nice to hear a reply lars, knew it would eventually be said by you, good work

Thank you Solutions are good lots of drama but no real solutions

Smokeythebear came up with some pretty good ideas :)

Lars --

Who is forcing you to do this?

Free Legendary Lars!

Lars got a minute to talk about some traffic trades?