AffiliateFairPlay Blog

Kerber of WurldMedia Indicted Again

Kellie AFP — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:36:24 +0000

A grand jury has handed down another indictment against Gregory Kerber, former chief executive of WurldMedia. This time the indictment is for grand larceny in the third degree. The allegations are that Kerber transferred $30,000 from Buyersport to his personal account.

Kerber was indicted last year under separate charges related to the sale of WurldMedia to Roo. At that time I commented that hopefully a deeper look would be taken into the financial goings on at Buyersport. It would appear that has indeed happened, although not exactly along the lines I mentioned. On the other hand, all the details haven’t been made publicly yet.

While Kerber has settled the charges from last year, pleading guilty to one of the counts, his legal woes made not be over yet.

TimesUnion.com is reporting that Kerber and his wife filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy last month. Saratogian.com that the Saratoga District Attorney’s office is working closely with the US Attorney’s Office in the exploration of a possible criminal case that falls outside of the Saratoga’s District Attorney’s office.

New CEO at Ebates.com

Kellie AFP — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:34:22 +0000

A new CEO for Ebates.com, Kevin Johnson, has been announced replacing former CEO Alessandro Isolani. Alessandro also co-founded Ebates in 1998. Prior to Ebates, he was a DA in California.

Ebates has stirred much controversary over the years in affiliate marketing with the integration of the MoeMoneyMaker reminder software in their business model. While Ebates was pulled back from actively promoting MoeMoneyMaker for over a year now, Ebates remains controversial for some in the affiliate marketing community.

It is interesting Ebates has gone out of house for their new CEO and appears to reflect their strategic growth plans. Johnson’s background is in email marketing and SEO optimization. He also has experience in the loyalty marketplace, but it appears that his experience in direct marketing is where Ebates’ interests lie.

It will be interesting to see what changes and directions Ebates may take under Johnson’s leadership.

There were was no information regarding what role Alessandro may continue to have at Ebates.

Proposed Settlement In ValueClick/CJ Adware Class Action Lawsuit

Kellie AFP — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:21:40 +0000

A proposed settlement has been reached and preliminarily approved in the class action lawsuits on behalf of publishers and advertisers against ValueClick/CJ. The cases centered on the presence of adware in CJ/BF and the impact on both publishers and advertisers. The two cases were consolidated earlier this year by the courts and the settlement covers both cases.

A court date of January 2009 has been set for a Fairness Hearing to determine if the settlement will have final approval by the court.

I’m posting two documents obtained through the courts which give detailed information regarding the settlement and the procedures which will follow.

[Propsed] Order Preliminarily Approving Settlement, Prelimanily Certifying Classes, And Providing For Notice

Exhibit A: Agreement For Settlement Of Carrier And NAR Litigation

VCLK/CJ deny all allegations in both cases but agree to the following settlement (summarized):

1. $1 Million to be paid into a Common Settlement Fund. Both Advertisers and Publishers will be compensated from this fund. Thirty (30) percent of the fund will be allocated to Advertisers and seventy (70) percent to Publishers of the class. The first document linked above defines both classes and outlines how the fund will be dispersed.

2. An independent audit of CJ’s Network Quality practices and efforts related to detection, prevention and response to third parties using software to force or hijack clicks on CJ. The Auditor will submit a report and make recommendations on how CJ can improve and enhance Network Quality practices. The parties will then issue a statement to Class Members summarizing the measures to be implemented by CJ in response to the Audit and report.

3. CJ will begin tracking additional data/information and will implement enhancements of its primary investigative tools and automated software investigative tools. This additional data includes (quoted from the Settlement Agreement):

49. Tracking of Additional Data and Information: Defendants agree that no later than 30 days after the date that the Court approves the Parties’ Stipulation for Dismissal and dismisses the Action with prejudice, CJ will supplement its existing detection procedures and practices by implementing systems responsible for tracking the following categories of data and information:

A. Prior Publisher Investigations: CJ will design and implement fields and/or tables in its database that identify and record: 1) the number of instances on which any publisher has been assigned a “fraud role” or has been under investigation for the potential use of malicious software to “force” or “hijack” clicks; 2) the time period of each such investigation; 3) the CJ employee(s) responsible for conducting the investigation; and 4) the outcome of the investigation. CJ agrees to maintain such information for a period of no less than 3 years.

B. Termination/Deactivation Codes: CJ will design and implement detailed codes identifying the specific reason(s) that a particular publisher was deactivated or terminated from its network, including specific codes identifying whether a publisher was terminated for “forcing” or “hijacking” clicks using malicious software. CJ agrees to record and preserve such reason codes for each publisher deactivated or terminated from its network for a period of no less than 3 years following such deactivation or termination.

C. Software Testing: CJ will design and implement a database and/or table identifying all software that is manually tested or investigated by CJ to determine whether it is being utilized to “force” or “hijack” clicks, and for each such software application, will record in such database and/or table: 1) the particular software application tested; 2) the time, date and manner in which such software was tested; 3) any publishers determined to be using such software; and 4) the conclusions of the testing. CJ agrees to record and preserve such information for a period of no less than 3 years.

50. Primary Investigative Tools: Defendants agree that no later than 30 days after the date that the Court approves the Parties’ Stipulation for Dismissal, and dismisses the Action with prejudice, it will implement the following enhancements to its Network Quality procedures:

A. CJ will continue to circulate to all members of its Network Quality team a daily “hijack report” identifying all instances of two clicks for the same end user being dropped within five seconds of each other, and will assign a member of its Network Quality team to be principally responsible for reviewing daily “hijack” reports and for investigating instances of potential click “hijacking” based on such reports.

B. CJ will begin to circulate a weekly “high conversion report” to all members of its Network Quality team identifying all publishers with a lifetime conversion ratio greater than 30% and a percentage of “null” referring URLs greater than 50%, and will assign a member of its Network Quality team to be principally responsible for reviewing weekly “high conversion reports” and for investigating instances of potential “forced” clicks using malicious software based on such reports.

C. CJ will agree to consider in good faith implementing any additional investigative reports or tools recommended by the auditor to assist in its efforts to detect forced click and hijacking activity.

51. Automated Software Investigative Tool: Defendants agree that no later than 30 days after the date that the Court approves the Parties’ Stipulation for Dismissal and dismisses the Action with prejudice, CJ will implement an automated testing protocol utilizing a proprietary software tool designed to detect particular publishers’ use of known malicious software applications. The tool will run on a continuous basis, and the independent auditor will be permitted to evaluate the automated tool and to make recommendations concerning the design and implementation of the automated tool in his or her Report.

52. Preservation of Publisher Data During Publisher Investigations: Defendants agree that no later than 30 days after the date that the Court approves the Parties’ Stipulation for Dismissal and dismisses the Action with prejudice, CJ will implement an automated system for preserving all “click data” associated with a particular publisher during any period of time that such publisher is under investigation for the potential use of malicious software to “force” or “hijack” clicks on CJ’s network. Notwithstanding the foregoing, no failure to preserve such data during the pendency of any such investigation shall be admissible to establish liability or breach of any discovery obligation in any collateral litigation, and no inadvertent failure to preserve such data shall give rise to any claim for breach of this Settlement Agreement.

The agreements with regards to compliance efforts are more significant than the amount of dollars reached in the settlement, in my opinion. I am glad to see such issues addressed in the agreement.

More information regarding who is included in the classes, procedures for opting out of the settlement and mechanisms for opposing the settlement terms can be found in the documents linked at the beginning of this post.

Friday Fun

Kellie AFP — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:41:17 +0000

It’s Friday and it’s the 13th. It seems like a good day to laugh a bit, so I thought I’d share a couple of videos sent to me via IM this morning. Enjoy.

A great commercial….

For all you twitter fans….Twitter Whore

Direct Marketing 101

Kellie AFP — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:32:40 +0000

It’s long but hysterical. A lesson in how NOT to upsell. Nothing like annoying the heck of the customer who has their credit card out.

Quite a liberal use of the world “free” as well. Goodness knows I’ve seen same type of thing on web sites.

Zango Launches Ad-Supported Widgets

Kellie AFP — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:52:52 +0000

Zango announced on their blog yesterday that they launched their first ad supported widget.

The widget will allow people play Extreme Racing 2 through the widget for free. Of course it’s free…it’s Zango. Guess what though? Users won’t have to install Zango software to play the widget game. WOW!

So how is the widget ad supported? There will be a text link at the beginning and end of the game. What is the text link for? More free games on Zango….which does require the Zango software to be installed.

Zango also said that this “inaugural” widget will not require the installation of Zango adware to play the game through the widget. This leads me to possibly expect more widgets from them in the future. It also makes me wonder if future widgets might possibly require Zango adware installations.

I do so love following Zango’s blog.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Kellie AFP — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:53:06 +0000

When will some merchants learn? If you’re going to participate in public forums, it’s best to stick to the truth or it could come back to bite you in the butt. If you just have to lie, then at least make it a good lie.

There’s a thread over at ABW right now announcing Pets-Warehouse launch on Performics. In that thread, Bob Novak of Pets-Warehouse made the following post:

Bob was responding to some comments by a couple of affiliates regarding possible adware coming into his program moving from an exclusive SAS merchant to running on Performics as well.

The part of his post I’d like to comment on is:

“I had Kelly work with us a while back on suspicious activity.”

First of all it’s Kellie not Kelly. More importantly………….

AffiliateFairPlay has NEVER had any type of business relationship with Bob Novak nor Pets-Warehouse.com.

In case anyone is not unsure, I’ve never worked with Bob on any suspicious activity in his program. There has never been, nor do I doubt there will ever be, any association between myself and Bob.

I can’t even imagine how he came up with posting such or why. Except maybe that he got so caught up in his own spin that his head wound up his ass.

The extent to which I may have assisted Bob along these lines would have to be from the public information that I’ve posted over the years on ABW regarding “parasites” and adware. Of course that information is freely available to any merchant to educate themselves. It’s why I’ve posted there in the past. Maybe I found something in his program years ago and pointed it out in a thread??? That is something I’ve done on ABW numerous times over the years and I doubt I remember each incident. Certainly it wasn’t anything to stand out in my memory. Either of the above certainly doesn’t warrant the implied relatlionship in Bob’s post.

I have never talked to Bob in person.
I’ve never emailed Bob.
I’ve never IM’ed Bob.
I’ve never talked to Bob on the phone.
In fact, my only contact with Bob has been to the extent he has periodically participated on ABW. I *do* recall slapping a temporary ban on him over at ABW when I was a moderator for his persistence disruption of any thread discussing another pet merchant by pimping his own program and bashing all other pet merchants.

To whatever degree affiliate’s may have a favorable perception of a program because they work together with AFP, this should not hold true for Pets-Warehouse, since no such relationship has ever existed. It’s nothing more than spin, and it’s bad spin at that.

I do have very open lines of communicatlion with both SAS and PFX. I expect those to continue. It has absolutely nothing to do with Pets-Warehouse.com however. I’m sure Bob has indirectly benefited from my relationship with SAS. He may well receive some indirect benefit on PFX. But that holds true for all merchant’s on those networks and other networks as well.

Slap me silly, but it seems that if you are trying to boost affiliate’s confidence in the integrity of your program, maybe being honest and not lying about actions you’ve taken to keep your program “parasite-free” (aside from the fact anyone who really does understand the issues recognizes that parasite-free doesn’t exist) is a good way to begin.

But regardless of the marketing approach you take for your program, under no cicumstances try to use my reputation to spin affiliates. Even the merchants I really do work with don’t pull that crap. Every single one of them has honored the tight controls I put in place on how the relationship can be depicted. Controls I’ve put in place to protect against people like Bob.

But fear not, I do see hope on the horizon that maybe Bob will stop pulling this kind of nonsense. Afterall, I see he’s now using his real name over on ABW instead of Henri.

Major Loyalty Affiliates Hit With Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Kellie AFP — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:47:12 +0000

It seems that a lawsuit was filed in Texas Eastern District Court on January 23, 2007 by Source Inc. alleging patent infringement related to a “Centralized Consumer Cash Value Accumulation System for Multiple Merchants”. Translation: loyalty/rebate system. Source Inc is saying they have the patent of others doing loyalty/rebate systems are infringing on their patent.

Listed as defendants in the suit are:

Access Development Corporation
bCorner.com, Inc.
Belcaro Group, Inc. (ShopAtHome)
Big Co-Op, Inc.
Intefral Technologies, Inc.
77BlueLLC (David Lewis)
Ebates Shopping.com, Inc.
Electronic Scrip Incorporated
The Ezshoppen Company
FatWallet.com, Inc. (Tim Storm)
iGive.com Holdings, LLC,
JellyFish, Inc. (recently purchased by M$)
Jet Set Joe Corporation
Little Grad, Inc.
MBC Direct, LLC
Mall Networks, Inc.
Misermart.com, Inc.
Mezl Media, Inc. (owned by ValueClick)
Mothers Work, Inc.
OC Rebates
Pinnacle Communications International, Inc.
Qdeals, Inc.
QuickRewards Network, Inc.
Shop.com
Simplicity Group, LLC
Spree.com Corporation
Tricordia, LLC
Tuition Fund, LLC
Webloyalty.com, Inc.
Zions First National Bank
Alliance Card, Inc.
Family Network, Inc.
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Golden Retriver Systems, LLC
Summit State Bank
Nietech Corporation
U.S. Bancorp
U.S. Bank

I’m sure many will recognize several of the thirty-eight defendents on that list. Source Inc may not be done with the list of defendents yet as there is mention of “similar programs whose identities are not yet known”.

Source Inc is also seeking an injunction against each defendent.

Ok, so patent cases are filed, won and lost every day. But “wow” was my initial reaction.

I’m not sure if they are naming any loyalty/rebate program which tracks across multiple merchants or just ones with certain technology or what.

I haven’t read through the patents yet, but this is certainly going to be interesting.

References:
The SouthEast Texas Record (the content on this page may change. Scroll down to Source Inc vs Access Development Corp. et al)
Justia
US Patent Office Search Returns

What Became of ExactAdvertising?

Kellie AFP — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:13:15 +0000

ExactAdvertisng…remember them? They were behind such lovely adware applications as BargainBuddy (contextual pop-up application like Zango), CashBackBuddy (rebate reminder software), ExactSearch (PPCSE toolbar) and Bullseye Network (BargainBuddy rebranded).

I’ve noticed in the last year or so that several of their adware applications have been dead in the water so to speak. Installation web sites owned by ExactAdvertising were still up and had downloads available, but the adware did not function when installed. I wondered what was going on. Did they decide to pull out of the adware business or was something else happening?

“Something else going on” came to mind as I remembered a personal experience with ExactAdvertising. Several years ago I recieved an IM from a friend who is an affiliate (I’ll call my friend Joe). They had received an email from ExactAdvertising wanting Joe to distribute the ExactAdvertising adware through one of Joe’s web sites. Joe asked if I was interested in talking with the ExactAdvertising Rep. Of course I was and I was in the mood to play.

So I gave myself an executive position in Joe’s company, some title such as Director of Strategic Partnerships. I then called the ExactAdvertising contact from the email and listened to the pitch. Silly folks never verified *who* they were really talking to and what followed was a conversation over an hour where I asked somewhat leading questions. The short version of their proposal was for Joe to use ActiveX installations (provided by ExactAdvertising) to perform drive-by installations of their software on Joe’s site (a forum community). Although ExactAdvertising provided other promotional methods, such as banners, the ActiveX installation provided a much higher conversion rate (installation on end user’s computers). Obviously because the end user isn’t actually agreeing to the installation. Duh??? Not only were conversions higher but Joe could inject the ActiveX code into any of the banners he normally ran on his site allowing Joe to two possible revenue streams with each banner display. Woohoo!!!!!! The Rep actually spent quite a bit of time explaining the benefits and technical aspects of doing ActiveX installations (aka drive-by installation).

After asking and being told exactly *all* the different ExactAdvertising adware dumped upon the end user with each installation, I had to ask why would Joe want to distribute something that would potentially interfere with his revenue down the road? Afterall, Joe had a loyal community and those users would then be infected with ExactAdvertising’s adware. Adware which could then interfere with his other marketing efforts. Ahhhh……Joe’s site would be whitelisted in their software and his site wouldn’t experience any pop-ups, etc from ExactAdvertising. Amazing considering how often I had heard that ExactAdvertising didn’t interfere with other affiliate’s traffic or commissions.

The final memorable moment from my conversation with ExactAdvertising had to do with why they thought Joe’s site was such a good match for distributing their software. Apparently by that time P2P users had become “too sophisticated” with regards to removing adware bundled with free software. They would install the free software and then immediately remove the bundled adware, such as ExactAdvertising’s software. On the other hand, Joe had “less sophisticated” users on his forum site who wouldn’t necessarily remove the adware as quickly. They might take up to five days to remove it. Woohoo…again.

So what does my flashback have to do the current goings on for ExactAdvertising? This notice which can currently be found on the various ExactAdvertising web sites:

Imagine that…it seems ExactAdvertising had a class action filed against them over their installation methods and are now in the settlement phase for the lawsuit.

You can find the proposed settlement here. As is pretty standard in most legal settlements, ExactAdvertising admits no wrongdoing. The settlement seems to primarily restrict ExactAdvertising from engaging in all the questionable installation practices. And pay the attorney’s fees of $300,000. There is no financial reward to end users who had ExactAdvertising software installed on their computer.

The class includes any persons or entities who had the various ExactAdvertising software installed on their computer on or after September 30, 2002. If the settlement is approved by the Courts, then such persons will be included in the settlement unless they submit objection to the settlement in writing as outlined in the document. This is signficant because of another standard clause in such settlements which protects ExactAdvertising from any future claims by the class. The Courts will hold the Fairness Hearing for the proposed settlement on March 13, 2008.

I have to say this isn’t the greatest settlement I’ve ever seen. Was ExactAdvertising already planning on exiting the adware business or did they pull back because of this lawsuit (or the possiblity of such from somewhere not civil in nature like an AG office in NY)? I’ve no idea of the answer. It would seem a prudent to remain directly removed from the whole adware picture now that ExactAdvertising’s parent company is InnovationInteractive, which also owns 360i, SearchIgnite and LeadGeNetwork.

It will be interesting to see if their adware reappears down the road. Regardless, a $300,000 finanical payment going only to attorneys seems like a very small slap on the wrist for the past practices. After all I know the phone conversation I had with an employee of ExactAdvertising.

WTF FaceBook?

Kellie AFP — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:33:56 +0000

I admit I haven’t been on FaceBook for very long. When I finally took the plunge, it was somewhat grudgingly, dragging both my feet all the way. When I went to FaceBook tonight, I was greeted with this little beauty at the top of my home page.

Eh? You won’t store my login info or contact anyone without my permission? Damn tooting you won’t because no way in hell am I about to give a third party my login info, for my email or AIM account. Even my ISP doesn’t *know* my password for my email account. I’m certainly not opening up access to my whole account just so you can see my address book or BuddyList. And I sure the hell hope none of my “friends” on FaceBook who have me on their contact list does either. I mean not everyone necessarily puts their IM info in their profile. And I may have more than one email addy in someone’s address book which may or may not be the addy I’m using on Facebook. “Without your permission” is ALWAYS a big red privacy flag for me. It’s a long shot away from saying “We do not/will not store or contact anyone.”

The recent issues regarding FaceBook and privacy doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy like it is. For those who haven’t heard, the tracking of user’s activity on other web sites via the FaceBook cookie, even if you were logged off of FaceBook. Heck, I’m not too terribly thrilled with their overall Privacy Policy in general. I’ve already stopped installing many FaceBook apps because the developer automatically has access to some of profile info, what info being somewhat nebulous in the Privacy Policy. When I started trying to utilize the Privacy Settings for Apps, I was taken on click circle, the end result being to restrict access to personal information seemed to be remove the app. Although, it seems the developer would have already had access. Hell, when someone sends a message I have to install the app just to see what they sent. I’ve already stopped that in many cases when I have no clue who the developer is. I’m sure some think I’m anti-social, but that’s why. I just don’t think I should have to give some unknown party, who can be anyone, access to an unknown amount of my personal informatlion just in order to “see” what a friend has sent me.

Back to FaceBook’s attempt to grab my email/aim login info. The form isn’t even on a secure page. Ok, so I viewed the source code and the form does Post to a SSL URL. Still, it’s not something I like to see. I much prefer such information being tranmitted on a page that is already on the “https://” domain. It’s also the usual accepted method in terms of security. But I also saw other coding tags in parameters such as “autocomplete=off” and tags which referenced storing. Not saying anything neferious is being done by FaceBook, but not things that made me feel warm and fuzzy. Why are they even there? On the side, I NEVER use any autocomplete things for my username and password to anything for security reasons. Call me paranoid, but I see the kinds of stuff that does go on out there.

FaceBook has a lot of potential. But are going to have to take privacy and security issues, even the appearance of such, more seriously for the long haul. The newness and coolness will eventually wear off for the people who are blindingly clicking any link that comes through FaceBook. Reputable companies take such things seriously.

To be blunt, the first thing that went through my mind when I saw that box was…damn that looks like something you’d see on a damn phishing site.

So yeah..WTF FaceBook? I’m no I’m not thrilled that you may be accessing PPI on me from my “friends” who aren’t as security conscious which *I* haven’t given you.