Popular internet marketing forum is allowing/supporting fraud?
 

One of the most popular internet marketing forums (which I guess I shouldn't name here?) currently has a popular thread that has been up for months where they are discussing how to fraudulently steal money from Spotify by using bots to generate fake plays

I have reported it multiple times and have now been banned.

Is it dumb that I care? Something about stealing money from musicians really pisses me off.

what about popunder fraud

I think you're OK linking to something in a conversation. It's not like you're promoting another forum.

well...it's BHW.

this isn't the first time they've done shit where I seriously question their leadership's ethics. I bought a link package and the seller never did the work, and BHW ignored my report and left the sales thread up. Then when I blasted the seller in his thread--they temp-banned me for "hijacking"

but leaving a thread up where users are sharing methods to commit fraud...I just can't get over how fucked up that is.

Their forum, their rules ? ?

Black hat does mean its kinda shady

obviously, but their rules involve enabling fraud? like wtf?

That site has always allowed soft fraud like that

first forum came to my mind when i read the post .

it's black hat forum which encourage stealing from giant companies but not individuals .

botting for false plays doesn't steal from spotify though--it steals from the artists

Spotify brings in $XXXXXX revenue from subscriptions/ads, they keep some percent of that and pay the rest to artists according to the number of plays they generate

if you use bots to generate false plays--your revenue doesn't come from spotify's cut, it comes from the artists cut. Every artist on spotify makes less money and it goes to the cheater instead.

It just makes my blood boil. I can't imagine anything more scummy. that BHW would allow it...I can't get over it.

You can say it about boting at all. On all plattforms botting costs "normals" something.

Buying fake views to trend on youtube for example is the same - black hat means out of the rules. If spotify would allow fakeplays - would it still hurt you?

I see nothing on BHW that I would really report to something.

I just don't agree

botting is a problem everywhere, ad fraud is a multi-billion dollar industry. Every time I've bought traffic, the traffic has included bots. Its not a huge deal, of course people will try to cheat, if you're smart you learn how to deal with it.

but providing a platform for people to share how to use bots to commit fraud most effectively--that's completely fucked up

It's a black hat forum... I mean... should be painfully obvious that sort of stuff is on there.. Is this your first time on the internet? That's... kind of the whole point of black hat. :p

BHW is pretty "tame" compared to more well hidden black hat sites, too. Whole underground out there doing substantially more shady shit.

I guess somehow I was naive enough to think "black hat" meant doing SEO stuff that google doesn't like. Not committing ad fraud that steals from starving artists.

Lesson learned?

Yes lesson learned the whole forum is about fucking big companies

according to that it's unfair competition but they are stealing from spotify directly it's not like hacking into artists wallets to snatch revenue .

well you're wrong about that and I suggest you read up on spotify's biz model--

spotify generates a bunch of revenue from ads and subscriptions, they take a percentage of that money for themselves and then distribute the rest to artists based on the artists proportion of total plays generated

if you bot spotify to generate fake plays--the money doesn't come from spotify's cut. You're stealing from musicians.

It just doesn't get any scummier than stealing from artists.

banks and others watch that board closely btw..

Why do you think its called "black hat"? Its like going to pornhub and complain about nudity.

Uhmmm yes. I would say Kids, sick people, old people, disable or challenged, poor people...

In this thread:
OP discovers the meaning of the term "black hat".


ps. obviously we're in agreement that it's shady, but that is the whole purpose of that community and its board.

yep. :thumbsup

the adult industry had - and still has - a lot of things going on that every sane person would consider fraudulent. and none of those who do these things have ever been banned from any adult business forum.

now what?

piracy and other shady shit is clearly frowned upon here at gfy. over and over I've seen that when someone posts a thread about their plan to cheat/steal/etc, the community is not kind to them.

sure maybe the mods here aren't banning anyone--but I've never seen a gfy thread where users are gleefully sharing methods to commit ad fraud.

I bet a lot of gfy'ers, even ones that jump into the Lynch mobs here, utilize bhw on the low.

I honestly just didn't realize how bad it was. I was fortunate to see quick success in adult so I've never spent much time on any internet marketing forums besides gfy.

gfy has a relatively honorable culture, I foolishly expected that to apply across the whole industry.

There are plenty of fraudsters here pretending to be serious webmasters, so what is the problem?

They are modern Robin Hood's, stealing from the rich to get rich.

You're reporting threads on BHW for being BH? :1orglaugh

dude most of us aren't down with fraud. even on that forum most threads aren't about how to commit fraud.

I do "black hat" seo for a living but I would never consider fraud.

Wake up and smell the roses!
Some of the biggest sponsors on GFY (including those that skinned the site) are among the biggest support of sites with stolen content. Not even when Warez was big, did they try to hide the fact that they send MAJOR piles of $$$ into the pocket of Organized crime and still do.

:1orglaugh The "community" here died years ago.

Also, by using any black hat techniques yourself, which you just stated you do full time, YOU TOO are absolutely defrauding those who play by the rules. Directly taking money from THEIR pockets.

So maybe take a look in the mirror. You look like an absolute fucking hypocrite.

I am like you in that I got relativelyt quick success I have somehow managed to sustain for over a decade now. So I never dived too deep into SEO or black hat whatever.

So is this what they mean when they say there's a "dark web"? How does one get onto this secret hidden "dark web" where people are selling CC info, buying/selling hard drugs, sabotaging elections and causing massive insurance fraud? Just curious. LOL

Then black hat seo isnt like stealing traffic (SERPS) from the honest guys building quality sites and getting organic back links? I know it sounds pretty far fetched compared to the spotify thing, but I guess you understand what I'm trying to say here :)

As somebody else said, companies that care watch BHW like a hawk.

If it makes you feel better.
BHW is a honeypot where anti-fraud experts keep an eye on.
Plus, Most tools on there are probably back-doored viruses to steal from the scammers.

Don't believe me? I got a Chaturbate token generator to give you for free. Cause I am such a great person that wants to share with the community.

BHW is a pretty open honeypot, not as much as say hackforums (but I digress).

Owners have been involved in some pretty shady shit over the years didn't one of the old admins run a silent PPI forum for botmasters aswell, Harro???? I know previous owners actively worked with the FBI to grass up the guy cookie stuffing ebay.

BHW is now just full of indians and wannabe gurus nowadays the marketplace is junk.

You did the right thing! Fuck scammers, especially if they rip off musicians / artists.

BHW for sure:)

Not Robin Hoods.... ;) God it is fun to see thieves bitching about thieves :2 cents:

The only people I'm stealing from are the other 500 guys that use black hat seo to generate tube traffic.

and by the way, all of that traffic gets sold back to the top tubes, who all understand the game and want to buy the traffic (and in most cases are also competing for it with their own networks of aggregators/cj tubes)

I see your point, but there is a huge difference between ad fraud, and buying links to rank your sites.

Organic links are almost completely non-existent in adult. You buy them--which is black hat--or build them manually--which is black-hat--or you aren't in the game.

They're making fraud aginst Spotify, maybe the info will be of interest of the co.