_Breaking News: iFriends Supports Adware!!!
 

Well not exactly breaking news. They have been doing it since at least March of 2005 according to Ben Edelman, a leading anti-adware/spyware consultant.

Check out Ad Number 7776 among several other major adult sponsors on the page below.

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/ex...ads-adult.html

The link is still valid and I don't see a "rogue affiliate" code anywhere so I would have to agree with him that it appears to be inhouse from IFRIENDS.

What's even more fucked up is their list of keywords that they bid on. 1400 plus keywords including AdultfriendFinder and probably every other adult company out there. :(

So not only are IFRIENDS stealing your IFRIENDS signups, they are stealing your AFF and most likely every other adult company too. :ugone2far

I would therefore beg all of you Pornographers with squeeky clean ethics to immediately cease and desist promoting IFRIENDS and all the other sponsors that use Adware traffic.

Only promote adult sponsors that can't afford to outbid the big name sponsors that do use adware traffic. Better yet only use mainstream sponsors..oh wait most of them use adware traffic too..ummm ..sorry not sure what to tell you :error

Maybe rethink your ethics so you won't be broke? :winkwink:

Will76 can you please get the word out to IFRIENDS to stop their support of adware immediately. Failing that can you please cancel your IFRIENDS account and tell all your teamclickcash affiliates and chathosts to do likewise? Thanks Will I knew I could count on you to help get rid of this adware plague, especially when it is happening on your own doorstep. :thumbsup

Will, ... on a related note, I am sure you are now seriously rethinking your business model and I have a proposition for you. I recently registered the domain http://teamepiccash.com and would be willing to let you have it for a modest sum in appreciation of your valiant anti-adware crusade against ALL companies using adware traffic. lmk :)

Hmmmm is there another side to this story?

No kidding?I think hey also send a lot of spam.

:thumbsup !!

I'm hoping Will can come up with a perfectly logical explanation to explain why it is ok for IFRIENDS to use adware but not any other company to do so, rather than something like "It's not zango so it's no big deal"

I am sure everyone including Will are glad you posted this link. Can you upload a screenshot or video of this happening? I will pass the message on....

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

---------

on a more serious note: Klen, I don't think iFriends spams at all (it's illegal after all), but they don't control what all their affiliates are doing, unfortunately, and spam ain't illegal EVERYWHERE yet, as far as I know ...

.

Datinggold has a cam program and does not buy spyware or allow affiliates to promote us with spyware.

will = hypocritical referral whore extraordinaire

Myst come on now man think before you post. Rememeber Will is the one who brought the whole Zango issue to light. It was his cookies getin jacked. He even stated this was happening with clickcash and he was workin with them on the issue...

Ozman still waitng for the screencaps or videos of this happening. Ifreinds or any other sponsor cant can accounts without proof. There are alot of sponsors on that page you just called out.....

youre right i may have spoken too soon
well see how this plays out :thumbsup

Good for them.

What the fuck

ruh roh raggy

oh the irony...... wont someone please think of the IRONY?

Just so you know, if I was ever to rethink a business model, the new way would never include insulting people period, ,much less as a means of advertising. Calling someone a pedo, nigga, slut, etc... will never be part of any model I am involved in so that rules epic out.

I support what you are doing (minus the sarcasm). PLEASE, Keep pointing sponsors out that are associated with spyware. I have been told repeatedly that clickcash does not support adware, if that is proven otherwise then you will see me switch to another company that does not support it. If you find some clickcash accounts who are using zango, eXact, or anyother spyware/adware please post them and screen shots would be helpful I will pass it along to them.

As far as the ad listed on Ben's site, I sent them the link to see what that is all about. Seems more then a few companies are listed on that oas-central.com domain name. Maybe you can check with your pals at AFF what oas-central is. If you look at the bottom of the same page AFF is using it as well.

I also like threads like this. Besides the usual idiots (any one at epic) and now anyone at AFF who are pissed that i brought this up, it is nice to see who else posts and what they got to say.

And you don't advertise on IBILL :thumbsup :thumbsup

Fuck iFriends!

Somewhere you have a very biased opinion of me maybe it is your AFF affiliation or something deeper then that. Maybe I called you a name 2 years ago or rubbed you the wrong way. Or maybe that is not how you truely feel and you are posting that for someone else. :winkwink: Whatever the reason you seem to have formed this opinion about me, you obviously don't know anything about me or you would know I would never make a bullshit excuse like " well it isn't zango".

There is no excuse or explanation for anyone to use spyware (adware) same shit. If you stealing my traffic, you stealing my traffic. I dont give a fuck who you are. I will give a company the benefit of the doubt that they did not know, DatingGold was using zango then stopped because they realized how much damaging it is to everyone. I gave AFF the benefit of the doubt till they made their post admitting that they were doing it and they weren't going to stop. I have never seen a clickcash ad on zango that did not have an affiliate account. I was told these affiliates will be taken care of. ClickCash is now aware of the problem it is what they do from this point forward that matters to most to me. If they ban accounts and do not pay these affiliates then great, they taking care of it. If their don't I would treat them no different then any other site (AFF) who openly continues to screw they affiliates and the rest of us.

Hmmmm
 

Wow, this is surprising. However, I'm noticing a few things.

1. This is really old creative. I remember seeing this on Persian Kitty when it was still a juggernaut.

2. The linking code from the actual ad is extremely convoluted. I'm not sure who is sending this. You definitely wind up at ifriends, but it isn't clear who's referring you or where this interstitial is popped from. Anyone know more about exact and who's exit consoles they lease?

I'm going to email clickcash. Will already has an I'm sure others are going to. We'll all get answers.

Will you need to back off. AFF does not "continue to screw they affiliates" (sic). As Lars has pointed out several times if we don't buy the ads to go to Cams.com then the ads goes to SexSearch.

A pop to a competing dating site is not in the the interests of our affiliates. We are trying to ensure that a user signing up for dating signs up for AFF with our affiliate's link rather than to another dating site that pops over it. The users sees a link at the bottom of the pop where he is informed about how he recieved the pop. If he wants to he can remove the software.

You are well advised to drop it.

what else is new

Sagi you need to look at this thread real close http://www.gfy.com/fucking-around-and-business-discussion/666380-cams-com-zango-strike.html

Please tell me why cams.com popups are showing as soon a surfer that has zango installed starts to load anyone of my urls with the word cams in it? You are intercepting my traffic and everyone elses who has the word cams in there url? If you dont call that stealing then i dont know what is.



http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1...keagainbx5.jpg

Explain exactly how this benefits the affiliate???

it only benefits AFF!

You are using zango to pop an ad the DOES NOT contain the traffic sending affiliates code correct?

Does not the ad you pop contain YOUR code that DOES NOT credit the affiliate that sent the traffic?

well thats good :thumbsup

you make no sense at all. affiliates get screwed no matter if its not against your ethics to use adware or not. if everyone used adware bidding on words and such, where would the sites they use to pop from come from? give me a break. how does supporting sponsors who promote using adware help affiliates in any way at all?

That's bullshit.. You're popping your shit over non "cams.com" sites. Thus you're hijacking my traffic and the sales I'm trying to make with ANY other sponsor. Anyone with a brain can see how you're trying to spin this.

Sagi,

Explain this to me please. I went to Jay's XXX links site and I clicked on his AFF link. When I did so this page popped up.

http://www.teamclickcash.com/zango/aff_cams.jpg

Explain to me how that is not stealing from your affiliates. You bought the keywords "adultfriendfinder" and sent it to a "cams.com" page. Will JAY get credit for the sale if HIS traffic signsup to the Cams.com page that popped up over his AFF page? How is this not stealing from your affiliate.

Explain to me how it is ok for you to get his traffic as long as you stop SexSearch from getting it. DO you think it matters to him who gets it if it is anyone other then him ?


WHY NOT POP UP A PAGE WITHOUT YOUR REFERAL INFORMATION IN IT. This way you still stoping Sexsearch from getting the sale and your affiliate still gets his portion as well.

Lastly,

If you going to threaten me then be a man and come out and make it clear. Now I am advising you I don't take well to threats if that is the way you are looking to proceed with this.

So this is this the next step in the process for you guys. Ignore the issue till you have to reply, then try to justify it by saying everyone else is doing, make up bullshit reasons like sex search is forcing you to do it, insult people, now threaten people..

Very classy company.


EDIT: I resized the window so you could see his site. The pop up covers 100% of the window and if you are not paying attention you will think that is the page you were trying to go to.

how so? how does it benefit the affiliate in any way if he doesn't get the credit for it? so your pop up includes the affiliates code? that would be great if it did but im pretty sure it doesn't. how does aff popping over an affiliates aff advertisement ensure that a user signs up using their affiliate link?
oh noes! :Oh crap

You don't have this right, I spoke with them in Chicago at the Ad-Tech show, they wanted me to buy traffic. When I got back and looked into how they were getting the traffic I told them no thanks.

Oh, i have to reread his release then. It sounded like they were using them then stopped in light of all of this. I apologize if I read that wrong.

Its just a guess, but I would imagine the tracking information on the popup is so the hit can be attributed to Zango.

LOL so they put it there so they can track the "hits" and then if anyone signups, oh well, that's just a bonus ?

That makes no sense. They could use a url to cams.com/zango or do several other things to track hits so they don't take it from their affiliate. They are using an affiliate code so they make sure no one else gets credit for the sale but them, so they don't have to pay out on it.

Will,

Sorry but I couldn't resist the sarcasm when I saw your beloved iFriends on that site. Let's see what iFriends says. I guess if they say it is an old campaign with a hidden affiliate code who they have since canned and it just redirects to iFriends we have no way of proving otherwise. I merely sided with an expert in the field who seems to think they are not affiliate links. The only other time I have ever seen an iFriends ad without an affiliate code is on their Nightsurf site. You know, the one where they "steal" everyone's MSN adult search traffic by having a custom deal with MSN for top spot on every adult search result. How do you feel about that practice?

Like most people here I am a Clickcash affiliate, an AFF affiliate along with many other companies. At the moment I personally don't care whether IFRIENDS or whoever uses adware traffic. I will start to care when it can be proven that this significantly affects my earnings if I have alternate sponsors to switch to that convert as well and if those alternate sponsors are not doing other stuff far worse than hijacking 1% of my traffic. If all those "if"s apply then I will of course like anyone else simply send my traffic elsewhere. I won't however lecture a sponsor on how they choose to do business.

I don't have any hidden agenda nor any opinion of you good or bad. I applaud your anti adware efforts but really think going after the companies that use it or even the many adware companies themselves isn't the most efficient way to solve the problem.

I don't know how you have any spare time after looking after your own stuff but if you do I think it would be much better spent on educating surfers on avoiding adware and removing it if they are infected by directing them to one of several pages and tools provided by others recently. That is until the day that laws against the Adware companies are passed and enforced and/or better anti-adware/spyware software is built into every OS to protect people from their own stupidity even when they "agree" to download it.

Here is the difference and it is a major difference IMO. Whether it is adwards, or exclusive deals with SE's, etc.. The search engine is generating the traffic they sell. People come to search engine because they are looking for something. While I would not personally bid on other people's names on a search engine, it is a lot different they what zango is doing. The person using zango is not looking for an alternative, they are clicking the the "Click here to signup now" link on my site. My ifriends signup page pops up and then a cams.com page goes right over it, same size instantly.

I draw the line when people stop generating their own traffic and they start stealing traffic.

so when do you start to care? You don't care about 1%, what about 5%. Would you care if you lost 5%? What about 10% or 20%? Would you care if you were losing 35%? Where do you draw the line.

SO you want to wait till it starts affecting you enough to care. Don't you think it might be a little late to do something by then? And your solution to switch to another sponsor. What good is that going to do? AFF, SexSearch etc are targeting a lot of sponsors. You might be hardpressed to find a sponsor to advertise that is not being targeted by spyware.

AFF does not screw their affiliate? According to AFF they do:

Ok we call it stealling you guys call it " adware collisions" and "unintended side effects of adware advertising".

And according to Zango you screw your affiliates :


Zango calls it "potential conflict" we call it stealing.

But you keep starting Contest threads and raising payouts, I am sure you are getting some sheep to believe you.

Bump for Sagi. Please explain how AFF Is not stealing from Jay in the example I gave. Or do you prefer to just make threats and run.

You are the one that made a point of saying that AFF doesn't screw it's affiliates, I gave you a real life situation, show me how you don't steal.

maybe this needs it's own thread since the topic now has nothing to do with the post(s).

Well at least they can join the ranks of ford, nissan, sony, dell, amazon, ebay, hp, pepsi, visa,expedia, nike and many many more companies who advertise with spyware networks.

Never mind the future, my point basically is that I would be hard pressed right now to find a sponsor, Adult or not who is not directly or indirectly involved in adware traffic, P2P traffic or numerous other traffic sources that are not generally accepted as being 100% ethical.

They either buy the traffic themselves, accept it from affiliates or are involved more covertly once or twice removed by laundering the traffic thru' third party "search engines" etc.

Adware companies sell their traffic (however it was acquired) to the highest bidder. As does MSN with their SE traffic, Google etc.

Apparently this makes good business sense as there are companies far bigger than any in Adult doing this as was mentioned above.

You won't make a dent in the problem by continuing to point out a couple companies and a couple adware sites. Dig a little deeper and you will find pretty much everyone is involved at some level. You don't have the time or resources to target every company who advertises on the Net as well as every adware company.

Therefore like I said before, all we can do for now is to educate the surfer and petition your congressman or Microsoft to make effective changes at that level.

I am not on an "ethical" kick here. Like i mentioned to DH a month ago, i would rather someone email spam me then steal my traffic. At least the spammer is generating his own traffic. This isn't a try to protect the surfer campaign or your sponsor accepts questionable traffic don't use them crusade.

This is about stealing money out of my pocket and stealing my traffic. This is IMO no different then hacking my server and taking every 10th hit that comes in and directing it to your site. I am not talking about p2p traffic. I never brought up the "too much free content on the net, don't promote them" or password sites, or anything else. There is a huge difference between adware (aka Spyware) and everything else.

Bottem line. Generate your own traffic, don't steal mine. Out bid me, fine. Develop a more effective promo fine. Just earn it, don't steal it. This should be illegal and i hope the laws catch up.

Just because mainstream is doing it doesn't make it ok. I don't think it would be so hard as you think to find some good sponsors here who do not accept stolen/hijacked traffic. AFF is the one stealing it themselves, it isn't even like they are accepting stolen traffic from bad affiliates, they are going out and stealing it themselves.

So you never answered my question. You don't care about it right now because it may affect only 1% of your sales. At what point (%) is it UNacceptable for you to have money stolen from you ?

You can't separate the ethics and money issues. Since there isn't an anti-adware law in place and being enforced yet you can't call it stealing your money so what would you call it without using the word "unethical" ?

Every unethical traffic source is taking money out of people's pockets who only have honest traffic if there is such a thing.

If it's ok for me to outbid you on a major SE like iFriends does on MSN, it's ok for me to outbid you on a third party SE that supports adware too right?

Regarding the percentage at which I care, hard to put a number on it. I see my sales generally steady or increasing with my major sponsors so apparently it isn't currently having a significant effect. If that happens before a law is passed I will switch sponsors to try to improve things rather than banging my head against a brick wall as it seems you are doing now.

since everything is connected some come of way, that would make everything either good or everything bad. Is that your logic, well this search engine accepts spyware traffic, and a link list that i buy ads from is listedon that search engine so I am bad too then? It's not that black and white. That's a cop-out. That is just as bad as Lars rationalization, everyone else is doing it. SO that makes it ok for you to do ? You are trying to say it is all connected so it is all bad. Which is not true. You have to start at the source of the problem and deal with it.

You may think the efforts that are being made here by me and others are a waste of time and not worth your time. If we don't succeed at making a difference then I hope your ratios keep going good, if not, then down the road somewhere you might have wished you particiapted earlier and was a little more proactive.

The problem with this industry is there is too much here and now, I don't care about tomorrow and i only care about me attitudes....

A reply from Stacy (@clickcash)
 

I talked to Stacy, the clickcash spokesperson.

1. This is a remnant of a test they did years ago. "We terminated that relationship with Exact/180 Solutions, and have no intentions of engaging in that sort of marketing again."

2. This was keyword advertising. If a surfer searched for one of the terms, this would generate a pop under. They did not try to hijack traffic or overwrite cookies.

3. She said emphatically they they simply don't do this type of thing.

From what I understand, she's going to be replying to everyone who called or emailed. If you wanna jump on the bandwagon, [email protected]

Frankly, this has really shocked me. I thought shaving was the mortal sin of this industry, but for Cams/AFF/Various to say they're going to fuck us affiliates before anyone else gets a chance to fuck us over is probably the worst thing I've heard in almost 8 years in adult. This is worse than iBill, Xpics and any of the shit IEG used to pull.

I just can't believe AFF said " yes we do it and we will continue to do it.". They must think everyone is stupid and will forget about it because of the higher payouts and contest threads.:upsidedow

So they tried it once many years ago but didn't like it and didn't inhale. :error

Also they used the friendly happy adware that uses a popunder not the evil nasty other kind of adware.

Why would they try it in the first place if it's so bad and why would they stop? It seems to be quite profitable judging by the number of companies using it so they must have stopped due to ethical considerations. Makes perfect sense. :winkwink:

Correct. But the companies who use adware traffic are not the source of the problem. True if the adware companies had no clients they would die but going after that part of the process is not attacking the source. If I wanted to get rid of tobacco I wouldn't go around to every store that sells tobacco and ask them to stop. I would push to make it illegal to manufacture tobacco.

Also, saying we are all connected and directly or one or two steps away from supporting adware is not a cop out. You have said many times that adware affects us all. Right now at least, each of us is more involved in directly or indirectly supporting companies that use adware traffic than being adversely affected by it as affiliates.

Tobacco is grown, not manufactured.

You're right. My whole analogy falls apart now. :Oh crap

tobacco products then :thumbsup

i have nothing smart to say