News of yet another settlement between a government agency related to adware. This time it’s AdultFriendFinder and the FTC. Maybe I need to start tagging these as “chickens coming home to roost.”

AdultFriendFinder and the FTC have reached a settlement over consumers being “pelted” with sexually explicit ads. The short story is the FTC says AdultFriendFinder delivered sexually explicit ads to it’s network of sites to consumers who weren’t looking for such and that’s against the federal law. AFF can’t do that anymore, either themselves or by their affiiates. From the FTC press release:

“Such ads were displayed to consumers who were searching online using terms such as “flowers,” “travel,” and “vacations.” In some cases, defendant’s sexually explicit ads were distributed using spyware and adware.” (more…)

Larry Rulison. over at the TimesUnion.com, has more to report this morning in the continuing indictment of two top WurldMedia executive. It seems to Gregory Kerber, former CEO of Wurld Media, is still employeed by the ROO Group, the publicly traded company who purchased Wurld Media this summer for $4.3 million. Kerber was hired by ROO after the purchase of Wurld Media as a senior vice-president of business development.

I wonder if Kerber had anything to do with all those pop-ups of Roo.com I was getting through adware? Adware inventory buys can be a pretty quick and cheap way to get a site’s traffic figures up when setting those good ole Rate Card prices for advertising on the site. Anyway, back to the Friday fun provided by Larry….

It seems a reporter from TimesUnion went to the offices of Roo, as a good reporter should, and those offices were located in a “nondescript building” with a locked front door. They did have a couch and Christmas tree in the front lobby behind that locked door though. Eh….Merry Christmas.  

Evidently, the Saratoga District Attorney’s office is still being a bit tight lipped on the specifics of charges brought against Kerber and Saxton. According to Times Untion, Assistand Distric Attorney of Saratoga did say

“The grand larceny and money laundering charges center on “certain financial transactions that occurred” related to the distribution of the proceeds from the sale to ROO earlier this year, Wendling said……Wendling would not say where authorities believe the proceeds ended up, although he said it was another entity separate from Wurld.”

My curiosity is piqued. I wonder if it ended up in the Lexy Foundation? No, that’s not news only me being tongue in cheek because it’s Friday. But those who were in affiliate marketing back in the early days of WurldMedia, Morpheus and Buyersport should remember about the Lexy Foundation. Just in case something changes on the site in the future:

Formed by the founders of Wurld Media….to assist the sick, disabled, downhearted, and poor. It was also used to justify the Buyersport software claiming the traffic of other affiliate’s as their own. Even when the software was just getting installed by users of Morpheus who were really just interested is being able to download free music, movies, software, etc. That downhearted part always did make me laugh. All those halos in the logo and with mouse-over of the menu seem pretty funny right now as well.

I do hope that during all this investigating going on that some official probing has happened or will happen into the Lexy Foundation as well. All considered, just to be sure that everything is on the up and up with the nonprofit.

I’ll continue to be watching as all of this progresses and more specific information regarding the charges become public record.

Yet another adware company is facing legal woes. It looks like the stuff has hit the fan for Wurld Media. The CEO, Gregory Kerber, and the CFO, Richard Saxton, were arraigned on Friday on a number of felony and misdemeanor charges. The charges include second-degree grand larceny, third-degree grand larceny, fourth-degree money laundering, first-degree falisifying business records, first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, failure to pay benefits, second degree criminal contempt and failure to withhold income taxes. This follows a seven month investigation by Spa City police and State tax agency. The two face a possible 50 years in jail. (more…)

November 11 is the technical Veterans Day. Today of course is the recognized Veterans Day. I came across this recently and thought it was fitting Veterans tribute, some what related to our industry. The performer Terry Kelly also wrote the lyrics and is based on a real life event.

To all those who have served their country your sacrifices are remembered and honored today and always.

What’s that all elusive path to direct revenue in a social media web site? We found a prime example and thought we’d share it with others.

Jango is a new social music site where you can listen to your favorite music, share it with friends, rate songs…all the usual social site type of stuff. The site is in beta right now and membership is by invite only.

The CEO of Jango is Daniel Kaufman and according to their web site “was founded in New York City in November 2006 by a group of old friends from Vermont, Sweden and other music hotbeds” Daniel Kaufman? Now that sounds familiar…someone who has been around the Internet biz for a while.

Staying with the theme of social sites, Kaufman’s LinkedIn Profile gives a bit more info.

Oh yeah, he was one of the founders and CEO of Dash.com. Remember them? It was an AllAdvantage type of thing. Install a toolbar and get paid to watch ads while you surfed. Like all the other such companies, they went belly up.

But there’s a bit of a gap in employment experience. What was Kaufman doing between January 2001 and November 2006? Well he was busy being the co-founder and executive over at DirectRevenue. Along with his friend and co-founder from Dash, Joshua Abram. Of course DirectRevenue is now a thing of the past between the actions of the FTC and NY Attorney General. For those who may not be familiar with the illustrious histories of Kaufman and Abram’s past Internet businesses, this article from MSNBC will give you at least a look at the tip of the iceberg. I really don’t see why the DirectRevenue days were omitted from is LinkedIn Profile.

But there you have it…the path of Direct Revenue…you get the idea. I do wonder who his other “friends” are involved in this venture.

MeMedia (formerly Whenu) is expanding into the Hispanic community with the launch of MeMedia Latino. Don’t know what else there is to say about it. Except for some reason the name MeMedia cracks me up every time I hear it. And I guess the Hispanic community is entitled to adware focused towards them as well as any other ehtnic group?

There’s been quite a bit of discussion over the last few months about forced clicks (or cookie stuffing) and coupon sites. It’s a feeling of deja vu. This was an issue “discussed” at length several years ago. The discussions were pretty heated then and seem to generating a bit of flurry once again. The amount of discussion happening now may be related to a couple of things. First, there are many new faces in Affiliate Marketing that weren’t here when all the discussion was happening three or so years ago. Second, a couple of high profile affiliates with a reputation for advocating fair industry practices were “outed” for using what some considered forced clicks on their coupon site. That’s pretty much tantamount to striking a match in a shed full of gun powder.

I’ve gotten quite a few emails, IMs, PMs, and twitters on the issue of coupon sites using forced clicks the last couple of months. The amount of discussion in the community isn’t always the same as how prevalent the practice is however. So I decided to do a little study determine if the degree of discussion is proportion to the degree of coupon sites using forced clicks today. Is the rate of incidents more, less or the same as in the past?

I did some testing over the last week and the results of my testing of the Prevalence of Forced Clicks on Coupon Sites can be found here. (more…)

And another gone, and another one gone, and another one bites the dust……

That would apparently be DirectRevenue. Affirmation of my general philosophy that what goes around comes around..eventually. A business model built upon bullshit just isn’t sustainable long-term. At some point, no matter how much spin is put out there and to how much the spinners may start believing their own spin, someone who has the ability is going to come along smell the stink and lower the big whammy. No one is immune. No one. A fact that a few others should be heeding at the moment. (more…)

Sometimes I find things in unexpected places and ways. This is one of those times. It also brings home the conflicts of interest that can arise within companies involved in different aspects of online advertising.

A friend sent a link over IM the other day for a news article they thought was amusing on the NYPost web site. I clicked through and noticed a pop-up ad being delivered. That wasn’t an unusal occurrence, especially for a content site. As I went to close out the pop-up window, I found an ad which I recognized for SpamBlockerUtility. This is a “free” software application to block spam owned by Zango and bundled with Zango when installed. (more…)

Zango has set their sights on the UK and European Market. Zango announced today the opening of Zango offices in the UK in order “…to enable Zango to more effectively serve interactive advertisers in the rapidly-growing European market.” In addition to opening offices in the UK, Zango will also be adding personal in the UK.

The press release states Zango currently has almost 100 European advertisers. The move is to allow Zango to better serve these existing clients and to better reach new advertisers outside of the US.

A heads up to our friends across the pond heading into Q4. UK Networks and Merchants should increase their monitoring for Zango advertising by both affiliates and merchants.