Media Traffic’s contextual adware application, Vomba, has been delisted from TRUSTe’s White List of downloadable software. According to the announcement made on TRUSTe’s blog, the delisting was at the request of Media Traffic. It seems that Media Traffic decided it was not cost effective to maintain their certification, especially now that their affiliate program for Vomba installation is live. Part of the certification process involves demonstrating your distribution network is being compliant with installation methods. The TRUSTe blog also states that they were in the process of investigating how closely other companies under the same corporate umbrella were tied to Vomba and Media Traffic. Could they mean Integrated Search Technologies?

Ian Lee, founder of Affiliate Marketers Alliance, recently blogged that WaterFront Media is almost six months behind in payments for their affiliate payments through Commission Junction. Volumes could be said about just that situation with regards to both WaterFront Media and CJ. Ian does a pretty good job stating, what should be the obvious, on the matter of non-payment to affiliates.

If not paying your affiliates for nearly six months isn’t bad enough, it seems that WaterFront Media is capable of adding insult to injury. How could that be possible? Well WaterFront Media seems to have a propensity for marketing the various web properties they represent through Zango. This isn’t their affiliates (why would their affiliates buy ad inventory even through Zango when they aren’t getting paid?) but WaterFront Media themselves doing the ad buys. Ok, the ads come through the Agora Media domain, but same thing just a different name. (more…)

I had the distinct honor of being named Most Vocal Advocate at LinkShare’s 4th Annual Golden Link Awards ceremony last night. The award was presented by last year’s receipent, Shawn Collins. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the event myself, but this in no way took away from the excitement and pleasure of winning this prestigous award. Angel Djambazov, no stranger to awards himself, graciously represented myself and AffiliateFairPlay. The other finalists for this award were Eric Ewe, Affiliate Manager for Wyndham Vacation Resorts, and Revenue, both who have shown support for my endeavors in the past. I now owe them both a couple of beers from bets we had going about who was going to win. I’ll happily pay and it really is fun to “compete” with friends.

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Yes, I am an SEO Genius! I say that with all immodesty. I was going through my site logs the other day and came across a new search phrase. I headed off to Google to check out just how well I was ranking with this phrase and found I held the number 1 SERP!

Clearly it is a reflection of my SEO capabilites and skills.`I’m now thinking about putting out an e-book on how to rank #1 in Google. I have the proof to back-up my qualifications to speak on such matters afterall.

Ok, what made me laugh really hard is that I actually got traffic from the above. Somehow I don’t think they found what they were really looking for on my site. I have to wonder what they thought Z*ngo might be. Maybe I need to put up some links for free c*ndoms on that page.  

Two separate class action lawsuits were filed on April 20, 2007 against Commission Junction, BeFree and ValueClick. One names CJ and BeFree publishers (affiliates) as the plaintifs. The other names CJ and BeFree merchants as the plaintiffs. So what do these lawsuits center around? Adware.

The lawsuits allege breach of contract, negligence and unfair business practices on CJ/BF’s part by allowing adware affiliates to operate within their Network. The gist of it seems to be that CJ/BF has knowingly allowed adware affiliates within their Network which commit commission theft and fraudulent transactions through adware applications. The suit is seeking monetary damages to both affiliates and merchants. More importantly, in my opinion, they are seeking a change in ValueClick’s corporate policy related to adware and compliance. 

I’ve always hoped that Networks would wise up by implementing fair business practices and enforcing them. My views on the subject matter certainly aren’t an Industry Secret. Unfortunately, the changes haven’t happened. As I was thinking about this, I realized that the adware issues have been ongoing for 6 or 7 years now. Wow, time certainly does go by quickly. It probably hasn’t been a matter of if such a lawsuit would be brought against someone, but a matter of when. Well, it looks like the “when” is now here.

How this may impact the Industry as a whole, well I just don’t know. It’s certainly bound to shake some things up. And I can’t imagine that other Networks aren’t going to be watching this case closely. I can only hope this will result in some real postive change within the Industry. 

You can find more information on the case here.
A copy of the affiliate claim is here and a copy of the merchant claim is here.

As we feel these cases are important specifically to the affiliate marketing industry, more so than any other case related to adware/spyware to date, we will be dedicating a special area of this blog to information on these lawsuits as they progress. We will limit the posting to official sources and will avoid commentary and speculation.

For those of you who are always fussing at me for not tooting my own horn enough (you know who you are), this post is for you. I was excited to learn that AffiliateFairPlay is a finalist for LinkShare’s Golden Link Awards for Most Vocal Advocate. Toot toot!

Winners will be announced June 19th at the Golden Link Award ceremony to be held at the Cipriani. The pictures on their site really don’t do justice to the venue. If you’ve never attended the Golden Link Award, you should definitely consider attending. Linkshare goes all out for the event and it’s definitely top notch. I’m not certain, but it appears some tickets are still available. It is held the evening before the Linkshare Symposium, whose theme this year is Performance Marketing 2.0: Innovation & Collaboration.

Alas, much to my chagrin, I will not be able to personally attend the event. However, I am extremely pleased that Angel Djambazov will be in attendance representing AffiliateFairPlay. If you are going to the Golden Link Awards, be sure to seek Angel out and ask him anything you would like to about AFP.

All the Finalist for this year are:

Innovative Affiliate of the Year
Linkstrom
StarStyle
Zafu

Innovative Merchant of the Year
Apple iTunes
Gaiam
NetFlix

Best New Affiliate
DBG AMEX Bonus Points Mall
Clicks2Customers
Discover Card

Best New Merchant
Direct Marketing Services
Drs. Foster and Smith Inc
Proflowers

Merchant’s Choice Award
FabulousSavings
FatWallet.com
UPromise

Affiliate’s Choice Award
American Express
Overstock
TigerDirect

International Merchant of the Year
Boden
FigLeaves.com
Forzieri.com

Best Performance-Based Search Strategy
Gardener’s Supply Company
McAfee, Inc
Wal-mart.com

Best Online Merchandising Campaign
American Express and TigerDirect
BareNecessities
Pingo

Best Integrated Online-Offline Marketing
Chase
Fabu.com and GSI Commerce
Wal-mart.com

Best Overall Online Distribution Strategy
Avon
CouponCablin, Inc.
Overstock

Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate
AffiliateFairPlay.com
Eric Ewe, Wyndham Vacation Resorts
Revenue Magazine

It looks like I’ll have some fun competition with Lisa P and Eric in my category.