Yeah, but is the reward worth the risk? All thats being accomplished is a further drawing of negative attention to our industry, and outright violating laws isn't going to make those extra signups that were "lost" come back. It's just going to make them a moot point, because you can't spend lots of money behind bars, or if the government seizes your assets. :)

I love this line.....

?If you?re using a business model that recruits others to market your Website, you are strictly liable under the CAN SPAM Act for those third parties,? Harrington said. ?It?s not just the people who push the button to send the spam that can be held liable.?

:thumbsup

looks like they got busted because the outgoing emails on the pay per email program didnt have the right subject. Not because they were using darkmailer + proxies

Looks like they named the billing agent as well. Man, one affiliate could take out the program, hosting, billing, and potentially, content providers and any link partners the site may have. Wow.

LOL you said it toots

anyone interested in getting consulting on canadian incorporations? lol

If your TOS does not allow for spamming by affiliates, one quick way to check is look at your weblogs.

look for affiliate ID links that have no referers.

Links from email or newsgroups will have no referers (like type-ins), and should give the sponsor an indication of which of their affiliates are spamming since the affiliate ID will be in the link.


Fight the Spotlight!

Being incorporated in canada is not the only step to take... it's like moving offshore, you have to COMPLETELY move offshore.

No US-based assets, no credit card processing in the US, no banking relations to the US, no hosting, etc.

Any kind of US connection can be targetted while your corporation is outside of the US.

And depending how big of a case, there could be foreign government co-operation.


Fight the No where to run!

Most sponsors don't give a fuck if their affilites are spamming anyways. As long as the money continues to roll in .... the spamming is overlooked. I applaud the FTC for taking some action against spammers, their sponsors, their hosting and billing companies. Hopefully all these clowns will get the message and tighten up their programs.

There's plenty of business to be had without resorting to spamming
:thumbsup

damn this is a kick in the nut rite here man. :Oh crap :Oh crap :Oh crap

Its simple.. Dont break the law dont get in trouble. I would never mail or let my affiliates mail without following the canspam act. And all those guys doing Spy Ware will be next. Why screw around. Its not worth it

can-spam laws are pretty simple. follow them and there are no issues

Whats strange to me is that alot of the webmasters don't see this for what it really IS.

This isn't simply about spamming people, read between the lines.
The industries peaches are being squeezed in all directions.

From spamming, to content, to processing and more!

very interesting indeed

Well I have offshore merchant accounts available and can assist with info on becoming incorporated in Canada .. the hosting is simple .. the rest would be up to them lol

Most sponsors have it in their TOS about no spamming, no newsgroups, etc... but as you have observed, if signups are coming in and chargebacks are fairly low, then who's bothering to look at weblogs to see if the traffic is from email or not.

Another reason that sponsors should be monitoring their weblogs is because some of affiliates are actually cp website operators who use pay programs to fund their operations.

They send out cp spam with instructions for people to click on an affiliate link (many times in email so there will be no refererer, or from a shell affiliate website). Once the person joins, they are told to email the username/pass to the cp operator who will log into the paysite to verify. Once they have confirmed, then they email the cp seeker the user/pass to get into the cp website.

If sponsors looked at their logons and saw that a new user/pass logged on only 1 time, it should give them something to suspect. I have heard pay programs say that it's not uncommon for someone to log in once and then not again.. but in reality, why would someone pay $19.95/month and logon only ONCE within hours/day of first signing up and not doing so again?

What i have described above is a different problem, but similar circumstances... sponsors will be increasingly more liable for actions of affiliates and having a hands-off approach could turn into a hands on the wall stance.

Monitoring your affiliates and your weblogs proactively will be increasingly more important. Additional dollars spent to do this monitoring may end up coming out of affiliate program commissions, as paysites may join other programs that are reducing payouts in order to deal with various business expenses.


Fight the Soapbox!

ya, the part about having no US-assets (land, bank accounts, etc) may be the hardest for most to give-up. if you go offshore, go all the way, unless you know some good attorneys that can structure layers upon layers of shell corporations such that you could be living nextdoor to a federal prosecutor that he couldn't touch you.

This kind of "invisibility" takes alot of money, so it's not for the faint at heart.


Fight the Cloak and Daggers!

yep wonder when they are going 2 go after the pill spammers

I hope so also

i agree 100 percent

a hundy pissed of adult peeps

of course they are. its money they arent making. it is the due diligence of these huge corporations that is really behind getting rid of as many revenue angles as possible. more money for them. watch the involvement of these big companies in adult over the next 10 years. they know how much money is here to be made.

the more people they get rid of the better. do you see any adult companies lobbying anyone in washington?

the big picture is going to look like the one where the bird is trying to swallow the frog, but the frog's got his hands clamped around the birds neck.

chip away little by little with laws designed to help "control" these nasty pornographers. the spam thing isnt the end. big business wants their internet back and the money that goes with it. i can only imagine the lobbying going on in washington.

TRAFFIC people. TRAFFIC.

the big companies already command millions upon millions of eyeballs everyday. this biz is going to get alot more attention from higher ups. not only feds. just my litle 2 cents. but what do i know?

... very interesting.

hahahahahahahahah fuck spammers!

about time too

you'd be surprised at how many do terminate but not near enough...... Think the ones that don't might re-think there business plan... like in FAST

you got's 2 be fucking 100% nuts to use a Earthlink or AOL proxie... But guess what.. got spammers that do it.

I hope (legal) clients of Reflected are not going to be troubled by this

Was the host (Reflected) a part of the company that was mailing or were they just hosting the offending sites?

do you think you could trust'em now. :1orglaugh

Almost nobody spams a sponsor without prior agreement. I'm confident signup4cash was using opt-out for their mailings, I don't know about the explicit tag. I know also they were running their own double optin lists. You'll be surprised to see how many US based sponsors don't follow CAN SPAM. Many more lawsuits will follow in 2005. If you see FTC going after signup4cash imagine what will happen to those that don't follow shit, use proxies and harvest emails.

Better advice - Go to conventions, but don't break the law.

We should expect to see the FTC go after master and expert spammer Doctor Dre.

Maybe they will serve him at his next concert. :winkwink:


I wonder where dre went - havent seen him posting here for a while

There is too many honest ways on the net to make money then to risk it by doing illegal shit

usually this happens as you are being servered, your wife's assests, your kids assest's, anyones assests that they think you my have your hands in.

Don't know about this case but if not they are very lucky

He's a big fish thats for sure... Certainly at the top of their list...

Some people are just too damned stupid to grasp this simple concept.

Its great to see a crackdown on spammers, but I'm saying its the begining of the end when it comes to this industry. If the Neocon Republicans have their way, there will be no more porn, there will only be one religion, and you are either for them or against them.

sorry but i think you are wrong on this.. I was getting a ton of porn spam, it's just about stopped now, but because of something I did 2 stop it. Granted the spammers did get termed... and I sure the fuck did not opt-in 2 any list

It wasnt the Reflected (reflected.net) that we know here, just a group of spammers operating under the name Reflected out of NV.