My take on the zango/aff scandel

[Jman]

Supply and Demand.

It's not the first time this happens and like Mutt just stated it WILL get more popular. Companies like AFF have a demand for cheaper joins without recurring to pay to hard working affiliates and to do so, they deal with a company like Zango who can Supply them with pop up traffic from an install on a surfers computer. Cut out the demand and you won't need the supplier.

All said and done to stop companies like Zango, sponsors like AFF need to stop being fucking greedy.

[darksoul]

to be honest I couldn't give a fuck if you get stolen from. I'm only worried about MY pocketbook

btw, even tho this is gfy I don't think you should skim read.
The quoted question wasn't even addressed to you.

[Dirty Dane]

Sleazy, its about principals. Either you have them or you don't. Compromise it because of some bucks is too cheap IMO.

There are probably lots of other ways people are screwed, like shaving and so on. Talk about it is just good. Its not trolling, unless they lie to create fake dramas.

[SleazyDream]

btw, even tho this is gfy I don't think you should skim read.
The quoted question wasn't even addressed to you.

then you're admitting you're a hijacker - as this is my thread.

you're no better than zango, maybe you should stop doign business with yourself

[DateDoc]

Just wait until there are 10, 20 or 30 companies like Zango out there. It may only affect 0.5-2% of your sales now but with 10 Zango like companies you lose 5-20%, 20 companies 10-40%......

If Zango and companies like it are not stopped now everyone will be affected. Has the time come to stop them and how do you stop them? You bet it has and the only way as an affiliate to do that is to stop promoting a sponsor that feeds Zango cash and keeps them alive.

[darksoul]

then you're admitting you're a hijacker - as this is my thread.

you're no better than zango, maybe you should stop doign business with yourself

oh please.
your reply doesn't even qualify for a joke.
Since this is your thread you could at least put some effort in your replies.
If you want a piss match I'm sure jimthefiend will be around shortly, you can play with him.

[Brujah]

Signup with Zangocash, and promote AFF and/or the top sponsors of everyone in this thread who are defending the practice. They don't care.. you've seen it yourself.

[OzMan]

...when there are 10 Zango's out there ...

There already are, well 8 main ones according to Ben Edelmen

I tend to focus on the following:

Zango/180solutions, Direct Revenue, SurfSideKick, Look2Me, ZenoTecnico, Command,
TargetSaver, Integrated Search Technologies

These all show competitively-targeted pop-ups, including commission-seizing
popups.

There are probably others, but these tend to be my focus.

Adware will only be stopped by a ground swell of millions of pissed off surfers pushing for laws to outlaw the practise. Sorry to tell you but a ground swell of adult webmasters complaining isn't going to change anything.

But if we don't continually complain about one sponsor who uses zango we are doing nothing right?

You do what you feel is right but consider this. Lets say your complaining forced every adult sponsor to stop using zango and every other adware company out there. It won't happen but lets say it did. Do you know how many mainstrean sites (and not only dating) there are out there that would then be the top bidder on those keywords?

Just like 100 adult webmasters standing on a corner waving signs to get CP removed from the Net won't make a dent in the problem. Hell most people driving by would think we are promoting it.

[Martin]

I love that pic.

[mikeyddddd]

By which time it might be too late for most.

Do what is best for you today and fuck tomorrow. When tomorrow arrives then try and change things.

Go take a history lesson.

Baddog, what if someone was hijacking your traffic?

I did not say I was doing nothing.

I am using .htaccess to send anyone using Zango to a page telling them how to remove it, just as some others are.

They get nothing from my sites, so they either remove Zango or go to some other site that will be stolen from.

It is probably hurting my traffic, but I'm doing my small part to get rid of Zango users.

If I were unethical, I would simply send them to someone else directly in a trade. But, I just give them a Zango removal page and that's all they get from me.

So I am hurting myself today to try to have a better tomorrow for everyone.

I would like to know if there is a way to implement a solution server-wide without having to change .htaccess across a few hundred domains.

[SleazyDream]

oh please.
your reply doesn't even qualify for a joke.
Since this is your thread you could at least put some effort in your replies.
If you want a piss match I'm sure jimthefiend will be around shortly, you can play with him.

i love it when the morons get burned. you know they are a moron by their response - they cant handle it

[BlackCrayon]

I was going to say you summed it up very well, but it was a little lengthy to be considered "summed up."

As I have told others, if you notice your sales dropping as a result, move on.

I don't really get why everyone is jumping on AFF, except that they love bandwagons. If you promote AFF and your income is dropping because of zango, it is pretty easy to change your links, if you have built sites with foresight.

the main problem with just replacing them with something else is these pop ups are trigged to pop with keywords like dating, etc. so you could promote someone who doesn't use zango at all but if they bid on words that appear on your page, or even others url's you are still screwed.

[monro]

Trust

Not at all. If they are stealing from me then why are they still converting so well for me?

Answer that simple question.

It is disgusting. Now it is the same as the shaving. If you still make money, let them steal a little.
For me it is a matter of trust. If I am an affiliate fore someone year after year, he becomes a freind you can trust. And then, suddenly, you find out that he has been stealing form you all the time. How is it just possible that you still doing bussiness with him?

It is all of you out there not leaving sponsors stealing from you making this shit to continue.

And converting has nothing to do with this. You convert good at what left for you.

[monro]

you know what - come on all you fucking whin a lot trolls. put our fucking MONEY where your mouth is.

If you're gona drop AFF for using zango - then drop everyone - and that means you need to stop using credit card processors that process for companies that buy from zango.

whoops - that means there's almost no company they can use - sorry i forgot that


fucking morons

Now we all know that you are a asshole. Took a longe time for you to prove it.

Everyone thinking of doing bussiness with you know what to expect!

[darksoul]

i love it when the morons get burned. you know they are a moron by their response - they cant handle it

give it a rest kid, you're trying to fight the wrong person.

[lazycash]

this is a good point, a VERY good point. a VERY VERY good point

You're right, its a very good point, too bad you don't believe in it. As Mutt said, right now its only affecting people on a minimal level. However, if we take your approach Sleazy and only concern ourselves with our own pocketbook and allow companies such as Zango to go unchecked, then the problem is only going to worsen to the point where it will affect some on a much larger scale.

Sleazy, install Zango on a pc and click your AFF ads and see what happens. I'd speculate that at least 5-10% of your traffic is affected by Zango and thats 5-10% of your ad clicks that will most likely now not buy from your links.

[lazycash]

so you're gona drop very sponser that uses CCbill and epoch? cause they BOTH have clients that use zango?


fucking moron

Way to compare apples to oranges, we were discussing a sponsor who spends money directly with Zango, not companies that do business with others who use Zango. The bottom line Sleazy is that you don't have the guts to do something positive for the industry and are only concerned with the short term and your pocketbook. I have no problem with you taking this approach, but don't try and spin it and make it seem something it isn't, fucking idiot.

[jayeff]

Signup with Zangocash, and promote AFF and/or the top sponsors of everyone in this thread who are defending the practice. They don't care.. you've seen it yourself.

Why bother promoting anyone except Zangocash at all? The people who are losing most from all this are sponsors who are not scumware customers and don't have any affiliates buying their domain names or keywords. Yet the reaction from them has been even more limited than that from affiliates.

Working with scumware will either stop or expand: it certainly won't stand still. So how much longer before more traffic is stolen in more categories?

So, your gripe should be with zango I would think.

It is easier to attack someone outside of our industry, especially because if you can convince yourself a sponsor isn't to blame, you can go on promoting him without feeling like too much of a fool. But just as there were sponsors willing to cut corners before Zango came along, they will be there when Zango is gone. Why not, when you can apparently do pretty much anything and the "sheep" will take it?

If we ever want to see this business cleaned up we need to ensure there are consequences for people who choose to put their own short-term gains ahead of reasonable professional standards and the health of our industry.

[Brujah]

Why bother promoting anyone except Zangocash at all?

For example; one of Sleazydream's biggest sponsors is AFF.

You can signup with ZangoCash, and tell them you want to put YOUR own AFF links on top of every zango visitor to sleazydream.com

Now you've successfully skimmed 3% to 5% of his traffic.

[SleazyDream]

That's hillarious.. "I'll continue to put money in the pocket of those stealing from me as long as they keep sending me some pennies."

Don't worry about it.. Some of us will continue to fight your battle for you since you don't have a spine.

fact is - you will do this.

you will promote sponsers that use cookies that saw someone else first - marked the cookie but bought from your site - you didn't get paid.

you will promote sponsers that don't use cookies so when i surfer manualy removed the affilate code you don't get paid.

you will promote sponsers that use cross sells one day and not the next and don't tell you or change you payout.

in the end all one is really concerned out is how much YOU get paid - that's it

[SleazyDream]

SleazyDream!

Tell me who your freinds are and I can tell you how you are.

I consider Andrew and Lars (owners of AFF) to be friends of mine

[SleazyDream]

Way to compare apples to oranges, we were discussing a sponsor who spends money directly with Zango, not companies that do business with others who use Zango. The bottom line Sleazy is that you don't have the guts to do something positive for the industry and are only concerned with the short term and your pocketbook. I have no problem with you taking this approach, but don't try and spin it and make it seem something it isn't, fucking idiot.

people were sugestig not to do business with me on that reason - how is dealign with any credit card processor that had clients that buy from zango any different?

please tell me

[jayeff]

Now you've successfully skimmed 3% to 5% of his traffic.

It is difficult to convey tongue-in-cheek via a board

I was attempting to suggest how ludicrous this so-called "business model" is. If adult webmasters did nothing but promote scumware, short of stealing their own or each other's links, the scumware companies would be out of business.

So would our sponsors. But then again, if the vast majority are willing to either play along with scumware or ignore the whole issue, maybe that would be poetic justice.

Of course it won't happen... but that's another story...

[lazycash]

people were sugestig not to do business with me on that reason - how is dealign with any credit card processor that had clients that buy from zango any different?

please tell me

You didn't reference the part about not doing business with you as part of your original analogy. If that's the case, then I do think its silly for some to suggest not doing business with you simply because you promote AFF. However, you have to realize where some are coming from, certain sponsors are taking major heat because of their affiliation with Zango and those seen as defending those sponsors will also most likely take some heat. I guess in the end, if you don't feel that its affecting your bottom line then you'll probably continue to take the heat.

[Mike AI]

So theoretically if a friend of yours, murdered their neighbors, raped their children, and blew up a local church - he would be OK with you, as long as he treated you well??


This industry rewards scammers, always has, always will - and because they have money, they are able to get monkeys to publicly support them.

Suckers!

[Tempest]

It's funny how you label everyone else an idiot but it turns out you're the idiot.

fact is - you will do this.

you will promote sponsers that use cookies that saw someone else first - marked the cookie but bought from your site - you didn't get paid.

Wrong: Anytime I discover a program doing that, I've dropped them.

you will promote sponsers that don't use cookies so when i surfer manualy removed the affilate code you don't get paid.

Yes And No: That's part of the "deal" I believe is appropriate when I'm getting paid $30+ a sale. However, I don't promote revshare programs that do that.

you will promote sponsers that use cross sells one day and not the next and don't tell you or change you payout.

Yes And No: Why do I care about the cross sells? That's how the program can afford to pay me $30+ PPS. I won't promote revshare programs that do that.

The fact is, nothing you say on this topic has any validity. You are friends with these guys and as such you've clearly shown you'll have their back. You have zero objectivity on the issue.

[will76]

You are right you run your business how you want too.

Most of what you said was right except for a little bullshit that was included:

My realtionship with AFF is based on how AFF treats me - directly. I really don't give a fuck what they do to others.


Does Zango effect my account - probally.

Little contradicting there. You say your relationship with AFF is based on how well they treat you, but then you admit that zango does affect your sales in a bad way. So you say AFF treats you good but Zango treats you bad.... So AFF + Zango = AFF treating you ok Thats like saying the gun treats me well, but the bullet killed me, the bullet was bad but not the gun who shoot the bullet.

I know the owners (both of them) PERSONALLY and if KNOW if they could find a way to make this right they would - it's very difficult though and I understand that and I know they are troubled about this and stuck between a rock and a hard place in the whole thing. It does not make sense for them to allow zango to send traffic to their competators. So what are they suppoed to do? Sending to cams.com isn't a perfect solution but it's at least something....suing them takes months to years and all traffic is lost till the lawsuit ends.

Bullshit. You are making excuses for them. What about the other 10+ companies here, many of them dating like IwantU or Datinggold that doesn't use zango, yet companies like AFF and Sex Search are targeting their sites too. So datinggold and iwantu did the right thing even if it meant losing a little traffic. They are in the SAME position, but choose to do the right thing.

Why doesn't AFF just pop up a page without their own affiliate code. AFF would protect their traffic and their affiliate would still get credit for the sale. This is a form of fucking shaving and you know it. this is bullshit what they are doing and any other companies that are doing the same thing. If you didn't " know" them you wouldn't be making these excuses for them.

Yeah it took YEARS for the Gator lawsuits to be settled which were EXACTLY the same situations. (WRONG).

More bullshit, you say they are protecting their traffic, they are in a tought situation. How the fuck do explain them targeting the other sites then, like ifriends.com and clickcash.com. How are they protecting *THEIR* traffic when they are targeting other sites. bullshit. How are they protecting their traffic when they pop up cams.com when I go to check my clickcash stats?

I am happy to hear you will help fight zango, but you have a little too much bullshit in there for AFF. Call me a troll too if it makes you feel better, but it is still bullshit lame excuses no matter what you think of the person saying it.

Have we had any updates from Lars about this. they claim they were * looking into it*... I think he did post today, it was the " you know you made it " post, you know you made it when you are going to the playboy mansion and you dont know if to wear silk or flannel.

a LOT of other companies are using zango and havn't had to endure what AFF has on this board over this- companies many of the people bashing AFF are currently using.

Boo fucking who. AFF is the biggest company in adult. They advertise here and have made millions from the webmasters here. They are the ones who could really make a difference in this zango shit but they prefer to make bullshit excuses and insult people. If it was not for Zango outing them they wouldn't have posted, which would have been the smart thing to do. Lars made it worse on them by making his bullshit posts.

I feel no pitty for them, if they don't want the heat then don't take the fucking dirty traffic, and they need to stop worrying about how much abuse the other companies using zango and start worrying about where they get their own fucking traffic from.

[will76]

.

I will admit I haven't read much on zango, because (whether you want to accept it or not) it really doesn't effect me. So, I know a little about it, but not enough to debate its effect on the industry.

talk about broken record and getting old... i've heard you make that comment a few times already.

For someone who knows " a little about it" you sure seem to keep commenting a lot about it.

I thought we already explained to you how it affects you, perhaps you missed it?

You dumbass you even proved yourself wrong. You said you don't know enough about it to debate it's affects on this industry. But then you state as fact, over and over it does not affect you.

I thought you were in " this industry" so if you know a little about it and not enough to know how it affects this industy then how in the fuck can you be so sure it does not affect you... (are you in another industry ??)

[will76]

Sorry, I don't see how it is stolen unless zango is a virus that was installed on the surfers machine without their knowledge.

From what I have gathered, zango is offering something to the surfer (not sure what) via toolbar. Right? Toolbars aren't exactly new, and I believe they have always been profitable.

I thought I read that someone has a script to disable it. I would think utilizing this would be a smart way to go. No?

FYI. EVEN Zango admitted that a good bit of their installs were done by shaddy affiliates they had, that were installing the shit without the people knowing. More then half the people with the shit on the PC does not know how it got there.

Before you keep talking about something you know very very little about, you might want to take an hour or so and educate yourself since it seems you feel compelled to talk about it.

[will76]

Do you know any AFF affiliates that are noticing decreased paychecks? I don't.

GFY search tool is a good thing, try using it. You might answer your own questions without having to ask them.

[will76]

If you're promoting AFF, then your sales don't get stolen by AFF anymore since they apparently fixed the cookie thing. So as long as their poping AFF over your AFF stuff, you'll get the sale.

But if you try something else, then they could be effecting your conversions with that other program due to hijacking some of your traffic.

In other words.. If YOU ADVERTISE 100% AFF/Cams and absolutely nothing else, then carry on.

Anything else you may advertise (like competing cam/dating sites), well then you may be losing traffic/sales to aff/cams.

I may be wrong here but that is not correct from what I can see.
Here is what i see happening, I click Sleazy's AFF link, it pops up a cams.com page over his AFF page. Their is an affliate id on the cams.com page that is not sleazy's. SO they are taking YOUR AFF traffic and sending it to CAMS.com where they get credit for the sale, not you.

Just the same if you are a sexsearch affiliate or affiliate of many other dating/cams sites, they take YOUR traffic and send it to their site.

[will76]

My apologies for for missing your point.

I do not think it's okay for sponsors to use Zango, but what is my choice? Drop AFF on principle?

Your boss rapes your wife, but he gives you the best paying job in town...

What do you mean, stop working for him and find another job out of principle.

Principles are over rated

[will76]

How would you feel if you owned a hardware store, you worked years building up your clientele and reputation, you spend money advertising it - when your customers are in your store and checking out a product out of nowhere an interloper representing your competition jumps into his face and tells him there's another product, it's better and it's cheaper and he'll drive him over to
the competition? I guarantee you that anybody would kick the shit out of the interloper. On the Internet you have no way of doing anything about it - you are powerless - you have to stand there and watch your customers be taken away right out of your store.

As time goes by and this dirty business tactic gets more popular then you really will have people forced into doing the same thing or they will lose their business completely.

Right now Zango hasn't penetrated far enough to hurt anybody's bottom line substantially - when there are 10 Zango's out there it will. People right now are just outraged about the principal of the thing and scared of what happens when the problem grows larger and I don't see any reason why it won't get larger when you have companies like AFF making it a very profitable business for Zango.

Great sum-up. For all of you people saying, its only a small amount of sales lost, you need to read this again and try looking a little into the future. The problem is not going to go away. It is only going to get worst.

Fact: if enough affiliates leave the companies who accept this traffic then the company will stop doing business with shitware, it will cost them more then it is making them. These companies need to protect their own fucking trademarks. Why trademark something if you are not going to protect it.
Then which ever rouge companies continue to use zango, or other shitware programs, then all of us (sponsors included) go after them and the shitware companies, united.

That's the plan, someone get AFF on board to lead the way.

We also try to educate the surfers along the way.

Anyone else have any suggestions on a better plan ?

[will76]

Bump for posting 5 times in a row and killing a thread

[sacX]

Your boss rapes your wife, but he gives you the best paying job in town...

What do you mean, stop working for him and find another job out of principle.

Principles are over rated

um that's a shitty ass analogy

[will76]

um that's a shitty ass analogy

a little harsh but i think it is pretty accurate.

Take out the rape and say that in order to keep your job he strongly suggest your wife sleeps with him. This way it is not "illegal".

Now does that make it a better anaolgy >