Fleshlight Just Threatened To Shut My Account Down For Violating Their Trademark but

[georgeyw]

First of all, I NEVER said you couldn't use AdWords...I said you couldn't use our trademarked name in AdWords. If you want to promote Fleshlight through the use of other AdWords, that is fine.

You do realise that people searching for the term "fleshlight" is due to your affiliates BRANDING the freakin term right?

So what you've basically done is wait and till fleshlight is well and truly out there and figured hey alot of people actually search for fleshlight. Let's ban our affiliates from being able to bid on these terms from now on and keep all the money.

[fris]

stop crying already its not like you have any traffic

[Young]

all of your AdWords, AdCenter, YSM traffic are belong to us.

[Young]

I can see asking the competition to stop bidding on the Fleshlight trademark.....but to stop your own affiliates? Who have pretty much made the Fleshlight a frathouse name? On sales that you're going to be getting anyways?

Cutting off the middle man FTW!

[StuartD]

using our trademarked name to make a profit.

That would be a profit for you as well... no?

[DidierE]

I can see asking the competition to stop bidding on the Fleshlight trademark.....but to stop your own affiliates? On sales that you're going to be getting anyways?

Cutting off the middle man FTW!

I agree 100%
We're all in this together...why make war when we should make sales

So FleshJosh and Co, please be kind to your affiliates from now on ;)

[Vick!]

What a bunch of clusterfucks that company is. They've NEVER seemed to have their shit together

I can assure you that I did not send out this email

Hence Proved!

That sounds like they may not use it at all in any way shape or form pretty much, not specifically bidding.

See what BoyAlley said above.

Most mainstream programs have that same policy. Many adult companies too. That policy is not new.

This is true. Rather common actually.

I second that!

Programs don't like bidding on their name. AFF is also an example.


And by the way, FleshJosh .. hire some professional to write terms and conditions for you. Also the emails related to reminding of terms.

You are saying here that you can use "fleshlight" on-page and in domain but your email says you cannot. WTF?
Refer to Varius's post for further details.

In short, Please, get your shit together.

ps. I am concerned. Because I also have a domain name with "fleshlight" in it.

[will76]

not to make light of this thread, Josh! how ya been dude? Hit me up on ICQ sometime and let's catch up. I won't be at any WM shows for awhile so..

to talk about torrents or spyware? bro.

[will76]

You do realise that people searching for the term "fleshlight" is due to your affiliates BRANDING the freakin term right?

So what you've basically done is wait and till fleshlight is well and truly out there and figured hey alot of people actually search for fleshlight. Let's ban our affiliates from being able to bid on these terms from now on and keep all the money.

bingo!!!!

[Aussie Rebel]

They donated $7,000 to the Free Speech Coalition as part of one of my charity sig auctions if that's what you're referring to.

It's funny how all the sites that advertise on torrent sites seem to make a donation to the Free Speech Coalition.
Fuck Fleshlight you torrent supporting cocksuckers

[DidierE]

You are saying here that you can use "fleshlight" on-page and in domain but your email says you cannot. WTF?

Yes even the original TOS found here: http://www.fleshlightcash.com/external.php?page=terms

say you cannot have the term "FLESHLIGHT" in the domain or in your meta keywords...

This is some confusing shit

[chupacabra]

A follow up email will be sent out addressing the concerns brought about by a vague email that was not written by myself and not approved before sending out. The main focus is on the AdWords and using our terms. The new email will give a better explanation.

ok, how about an email detailing why you guys are supporting torrent sites like adultsins .net that are putting operators like me out of business? was that a policy that wasn't written by yourself either, will i get a "better explanation" on that matter via email anytime soon, bro..?

[Vick!]

Yes even the original TOS found here: http://www.fleshlightcash.com/external.php?page=terms

say you cannot have the term "FLESHLIGHT" in the domain or in your meta keywords...

This is some confusing shit

Don't you think they should have some shit to use as last weapon? Kick the webmaster and keep his money?

[stickyfingerz]

Look out Charlie Brown.... The torrent hater gang is going to take you down. WHOO AHHH!

[Sands]

Muh knee's actin' up... storm's brewin'. Gunna be a big'un.

[tony286]

Look out Charlie Brown.... The torrent hater gang is going to take you down. WHOO AHHH!

Thanks for bringing that up, its funny they care about their trademark but having their banners on sites that giveaway others content is ok. Thats funny.

[germ]

I think you guys are making way too big of a deal about the email.

Yeah, it was poorly written and confusing. The guy came in and cleared up what the email was supposed to convey, and apologized. I think it's time to stop crying about it. It's their policy. If you don't like it, don't promote them.

[stickyfingerz]

Thanks for bringing that up, its funny they care about their trademark but having their banners on sites that giveaway others content is ok. Thats funny.

Re read the thread I didnt bring it up. I was replying to it.

[tony286]

Re read the thread I didnt bring it up. I was replying to it.

I was just glancing and yours spoke to me

[Jace]

I got the same email and thought it was directed at me also.....in fact I loaded up my domain list and tried to find what domain I had with fleshlight in it...when I didn't find one I hit reply and was about to send you all a email asking why you thought I was violating

before I hit reply I came to gfy...LOL

[Young]

I think it's time to stop crying about it. It's their policy. If you don't like it, don't promote them.

You're obviously someone that didn't invest your hours, money, traffic and hard work into helping build Fleshlight into the brand that it is today....only to be told to either comply or leave it all on the table.

[F-U-Jimmy]

I got the same fucking e-mail and im not an affiliate. Think you got your spam lists mixed up ?

[Penny24Seven]

why didn't the email just say adwords and nothing else?

[CyberHustler]

Bahhh, humbug...

[SmokeyTheBear]

It's funny how all the sites that advertise on torrent sites seem to make a donation to the Free Speech Coalition.
Fuck Fleshlight you torrent supporting cocksuckers

Of course they do , torrent sites cant possibly keep 2257 records for stolen videos thus if your affiliate base is sent to jail its rather hard to make money.

That being said i have noticed a small decline in the fleshlight ads on torrent sites and other sites with stolen content, hopefully this continues and is not just a diff ploy to get some free cash by letting torrent sites ride until their checks don't come

[stev0]

Here's they email they sent me. I'm assuming it was sent to all their affiliates


Hello Everyone,

I would just like to remind everyone that as per our service agreement,
terms and conditions, terms of service (whichever you choose to call
it) that we do not allow trademark bidding.

Please refer to Section 2 Articles 5 and 7:

5. We also prohibit the use of keywords, search terms, and domain
names that contain any variations of our Trademarks, such as
"Fleshlight,? for use in search engines, portals, sponsored advertising services,
or other search and referral services. If you send visitors from any
site we consider an unacceptable traffic source, your account may be
cancelled, and any monies owed to you will be forfeited.

7. You will not redirect traffic to our site where the URL remains in
the address when a customer attempts to bookmark, what appears to be,
our site.

Please cease all trademark bidding within the next 48 hours or we will
be forced to remove you from the Fleshlight Affiliate Program.

Thank You For Your Compliance,

The Fleshlight Team

Those rules are pretty rediculous... you want affiliates to promote your "fleshlight" yet, not refer to it as a "fleshlight" for fear that the affiliate will get better SE rankings that your own site?

Support your affiliates or market it on your own.. you can't have it both ways.

[who]

I also got the email. You really got your knickers in a twist about that? Wow..

[Tempest]

I'm amazed at the level of reading comprehension so many people appear to have..

[bobby666]

they just flashed out their tos

[the indigo]

Since affiliates are in big part responsable for the global "branding" of the product, which directy affects the number of SE searches, I don't see a legit reason to prohibit affiliates from getting their 'share' of that global branding.

The trademark argument is stupid. Fleshlight.com already get a shit load of indirect type-ins sales from the affiliates, which you don't have to pay.

This is normal and out of control, even if the affiliate program want to give the commission to an affiliate who seen his sale slip due to the customer typing "fleshlight.com" instead of clicking on the banner. (and a lot actually type fleshlight in their google bar instead of clicking the affiliate banner)

Having said that, you can run your affiliate program the way you want, but I don't think it is a good ethic move towards your affiliates, especially since the copyright protection argument doesn't sound legitimate since all the keywords searches are going to fleshlight.com -- the difference is that you have to pay commissions and you can keep the 100's of daily sales from SE for yourself.

Without the affiliates, you won't be doing 100's daily sales from SE's - You think it is fair? Well, no... not at all.

We lost $40,000 last year from the NATS fiasco, and now this. What is the next thing for 2008?

[SleazyDream]

i've never had any problems with fleshlight. they have always been professional, courtious, and respectful in any communication I've had with them.

personally I think they are a great company with an amazing product.

[the indigo]

Those rules are pretty rediculous... you want affiliates to promote your "fleshlight" yet, not refer to it as a "fleshlight" for fear that the affiliate will get better SE rankings that your own site?

Support your affiliates or market it on your own.. you can't have it both ways.

Well said.

You can't use affiliates to brand your product, then keep the gold traffic for yourself over (Type-ins + ALL Search Engines).

[Sebastian Sands]

OK, so if I decide to stop promoting you now, and I just didnt reach the minimum pay out (sales been not what they once were with FL) will you pay me out and close the account? Or pay me?

Sebastian

[the indigo]

i've never had any problems with fleshlight. they have always been professional, courtious, and respectful in any communication I've had with them.

personally I think they are a great company with an amazing product.

Sleazy, we do advertising on your site.

Let's say we buy a banner for $2000.00 per month. We renew every months for 4-5 months.

Now, you realize the product we are promoting via your site is selling well, and that the ROI must be interesting. You tell me to stop advertising so you can put your own banner promoting that product on your own site.

Would you do that?

I guess no, but it happened to us a few times... and it's okay (not ethic) since you are the owner of your site and can tell anybody to GFY if you want.

Fleshlight doesn't own google.com / yahoo.com but by enforcing their TOS on ALL Search Engines, they are trying to "own" that traffic... which is not fair to affialites doing the worldwide branding, especially for such a "brand/type-ins" product.

[SleazyDream]

Sleazy, we do advertising on your site.

Let's say we buy a banner for $2000.00 per month. We renew every months for 4-5 months.

Now, you realize the product we are promoting via your site is selling well, and that the ROI must be interesting. You tell me to stop advertising so you can put your own banner promoting that product on your own site.

Would you do that?

I guess no, but it happened to us a few times... and it's okay (not ethic) since you are the owner of your site and can tell anybody to GFY if you want.

Fleshlight doesn't own google.com / yahoo.com but by enforcing their TOS on ALL Search Engines, they are trying to "own" that traffic... which is not fair to affialites doing the worldwide branding, especially for such a "brand/type-ins" product.

i try not to cross compete with my advertisers. I advetise AFF myself but did that before I started selling ads and don't allow anyone other then me to market dating sites on my tgps. it's the only only thing i advertise other than my own stuff and have done it since 1998

but thats just me

personally I think...
there is a case for trademark there......

just cause one company does it doesn't mean another won't


i'm not going to say it right or wrong - everyone has different ways of marketing THEIR product and at the end of the day it's THEIR product so they make the rules for THEIR product.

as long as someone is upfront about it - it's fair game. their rules are THEIR rules. if you play in their sandbox you play by THEIR rules. if they change the rules - honestly - that's fair game as long as they give you fair notice of the rule change. in their sandbox they can make and change the rules any time they want.

[Young]

the proverbial ball was rolling for a pretty long time and built up a lot of steam before they pulled this one.

if they had enforced this TOS earlier they wouldn't be the Fleshlight that they are now.

bait and switch. okie doke. call it what you will.

now that fleshlight is a commonly typed in term search engine wise (thanks to affiliates)...they want all of that traffic to themselves.

[will76]

the proverbial ball was rolling for a pretty long time and built up a lot of steam before they pulled this one.

if they had enforced this TOS earlier they wouldn't be the Fleshlight that they are now.

bait and switch. okie doke. call it what you will.

now that fleshlight is a commonly typed in term search engine wise (thanks to affiliates)...they want all of that traffic to themselves.

another bingo!!!

[U.R.A.M.F.S]

wow bad move on Fleshlights part. Not smart at all

[U.R.A.M.F.S]

at this rate of things I doubt they will have any affiliates at all.

I am dropping my links today, had enough of this affiliate fucking over crap

[Martin3]

I don't see the problem here. I got the same email and it specifically says "Hello EVERYONE" and "bidding"

Where the fuck is the confusion?

It's not a policy I agree with, but the message was pretty clear to me.

[halfpint]

Hey FleshJosh after all this bad publicity and affliates dropping you, you might need some advertising, well we have some add spots on our homepage if you are intrested, hit me up

[jonesonyou]

I found a Picture of you BOy Alley.




You are THexy.

[U.R.A.M.F.S]

New Email


To All Affiliates:

This is a blanket e-mail addressing some concerns that have been voiced to us regarding an earlier email. We are not specifically targeting any affiliates out there and by no means were we trying to implicate any individuals as not adhering to our Terms of Service. The purpose of the earlier e-mail was to remind everyone of the Terms and Conditions and to give anyone bidding on trademark terms a reprieve.

More specifically, we are taking a more aggressive stance on the PPC aspect of our affiliate program. We are trying to weed out those PPC affiliates who may be taking away from our business by giving customers the impression that they are fleshlight.com (http://fleshlight.com) by using it in their display URL.

There was also some confusion about the use of fleshlight being in your domain name. To clarify, we are NOT stopping the use of fleshlight domain names, and any affiliate who has a site with the fleshlight name in it does NOT need to shut it down.

Please keep in mind that this is a blanket email (as was the earlier one) reminding everyone of our Terms and Conditions. We have sent this email as a service to our valued affiliates and once again apologize for not marking the earlier email as a "mass communication"

Thanks for all the hard work,

The Fleshlight Team

[DidierE]

Thank You Fleshlight For The Clarification!

[Beejeebers]

This ppc policy does exist in mainstream and I personally LOVE IT.

It's so short sighted and just plain stupid to not allow your affiliates who are pushing your product to use the fucking product name in their ads. It's not taking any money away from the business, it's adding a shitload more. Stupid companies like this are great finds though because you can take their list of "restricted ppc terms" and advertise for the competition with them.

So, instead of advertising for Fleshlight, make an adwords campaign advertising their competition, some dildo or plastic vagina or whatever and USE the fleshlight term in there. Your ad could be:

Looking for Fleshlight?
Screw them, try this instead.
$19.95 for Jeanna's pussy.
www.fleshlight-sucks.com

You'd make a ton for the competition that way. I really love the affiliate managers who tell you the EXACT phrases NOT to bid on for their product. Those lists are pure gold for pushing the competitor products.

So what's better fleshlight? Seeing your ad in the first spot then 10 competitors' ads right below you OR Seeing your ad in the first spot then 10 affiliates pushing all the sales to YOU?

Right now you're saying you want exclusive rights to it on adwords, so you chose option 1 above. So, screw you fleshlight and all the stupid fucking mainstream companies, (99% of them) who think they're protecting their brand and making more money using this policy. You have no clue how much money YOU ARE LOSING with this stupid ass backwards policy. Let your affiliates make you sales, don't hinder them. Your offline marketing people should NOT be running your online marketing activities.

[FakeNick]

i've never had any problems with fleshlight. they have always been professional, courtious, and respectful in any communication I've had with them.

personally I think they are a great company with an amazing product.

quoted for broness

[Vick!]

I don't see the problem here. I got the same email and it specifically says "Hello EVERYONE" and "bidding"

Where the fuck is the confusion?

It's not a policy I agree with, but the message was pretty clear to me.

Confusion is that statement of their rep Josh is very different than what was stated in email and what is stated on their website in TOS.

Read this and this.

[V_RocKs]

AKA, don't load their page into a frame.

Though they could view the source of traffic cash gold websites to see how to break frames.

[V_RocKs]

This ppc policy does exist in mainstream and I personally LOVE IT.

It's so short sighted and just plain stupid to not allow your affiliates who are pushing your product to use the fucking product name in their ads. It's not taking any money away from the business, it's adding a shitload more. Stupid companies like this are great finds though because you can take their list of "restricted ppc terms" and advertise for the competition with them.

So, instead of advertising for Fleshlight, make an adwords campaign advertising their competition, some dildo or plastic vagina or whatever and USE the fleshlight term in there. Your ad could be:

Looking for Fleshlight?
Screw them, try this instead.
$19.95 for Jeanna's pussy.
www.fleshlight-sucks.com

You'd make a ton for the competition that way. I really love the affiliate managers who tell you the EXACT phrases NOT to bid on for their product. Those lists are pure gold for pushing the competitor products.

So what's better fleshlight? Seeing your ad in the first spot then 10 competitors' ads right below you OR Seeing your ad in the first spot then 10 affiliates pushing all the sales to YOU?

Right now you're saying you want exclusive rights to it on adwords, so you chose option 1 above. So, screw you fleshlight and all the stupid fucking mainstream companies, (99% of them) who think they're protecting their brand and making more money using this policy. You have no clue how much money YOU ARE LOSING with this stupid ass backwards policy. Let your affiliates make you sales, don't hinder them. Your offline marketing people should NOT be running your online marketing activities.

Actually they can request that you not use their Trademarked name no matter who you are advertising.

[Aneros Josh]

I don't have the time or energy to respond to everyone's claims but I will make a statement that should encompass the general mood here. We are NOT trying to make people stop using SE or prohibiting people from using our name on their pages. It is simply a PPC thing. As for giving back to the affiliates who have "branded" our name, we do. It's called a 30% payout and it's just about the best you're going to find in the toy industry. Do you think it's fair for an affiliate to bid against us on our own name, drive up our costs on PPC, then get the 30% payout on top of that? If any affiliate would like to beef up their SE ranking and do well in the organic results, we have absolutely no problem with that. We just don't feel it's right that someone can open up an adwords account, simply put the name "Fleshlight" in their bid terms, and start making money of a name that we have been branding for 10 years. In reference to the smart ass comments being made by some, it's not unexpected I guess it hurts a little that I have NEVER made a negative comment toward any company and in fact, generally try to find something nice to say when companies post a new product or service but yet others can't seem to use that same mentality and want to jump on a bashing bandwagon rather than hit me up personally and discuss whatever problem(s) they are having. If anyone has any questions or needs anything at all, please hit me up.... 345334957 or [email protected]