Unfortunetly it is more popular for them to blame it on the time of year or the weather as the cause of their sales being down instead of them realizing it could be shit like this that is slowly cutting into their profit.

The last time I complained about severe drop in conversions, zango was involved. Zango affiliate was kicked out, sales magically came back. Again this month, conversions are much worse than they were back then. With all the scumware applications mentioned in these threads, I'm sure scumbags found other avenues to steal sales. Zango is only a needle in a hay stack. Just so happens to be the program du jour because most people have heard of 180solutions, so zango is fairly well known, as most of the other scumware programs are unknown by the majority.

Missie

Hey what are some of the other spyware companies that target adult as well?

Missie, I think that Zango happens to have the numbers in their favor. How they have set their systems up and their traffic flows means they are able to maintain a fairly high number of active installs, even with the overwhelming churn and 365% customer loss per year.

Basically, with 20 million people "enjoying" their software, they can make a pretty big dent in sales, especially if they are hitting majoritly into the english marketplaces, which is where most of us are trying to sell.

What other major toolbar players are hitting adult?

Alex, I love when you get worked up!!

Keep up the good fight.

That's exactly my point Alex. Zango doesn't always get installed on its own. Many times it's bundled with other scumware downloads of which the first illegal install is a totally different application, zango is just included in the bundle along with many others. When these shady companies pay per install, many scumbag webmasters will combine several of them in the same download so they make quite a bit more that way. So rather than making just $0.40 with zango, they could be earning $x.xx or even $xx.xx per install.

Zango probably is the most known scumware program in both adult and mainstream. 180Solutions has been in the spotlight many times over the years, not many have never heard of them or never got hit with one of their scumware applications (n/case or 180SearchAssistant).

Pretty much the only ways to have heard of some of the others is 1) if you got hit with it, 2) if you follow spyware talks, 3) If you happened to have read about it in some forum, or 4) someone told you about it

I'm not going to post any more names of scumware programs. Too many idiots here are already proud of infecting computers with zango and brag about it (someone shoot them!!!) so I'm not going to give them any ideas or where/how to get more of these applications.

Missie

I only get worked up about the good stuff now... for the rest, there is spamarrest and late night TV :)

Alex

Sorry, I can't resist... this is from the ad-tech or whatever show website, a nice description of what Zango does...

I like the "time-shifted ad delivery by engaging more than 20 million consumers precisely when they are most likely to make a purchasing decision" - in other words, we will jump in just as a consumer heads towards a pay or purchase website and either offer another alternative (covering most of the screen) or the same site with a different tracking code or with the code disabled to retain highest possible earnings.

It is so funny to read the flowers and sunshine way they describe their asterixware.

zango zango zango.

Kellie and Ben should set up a booth right across from them and show videos of their own. :D

Missie

50...........

I believe they only pay .40 on us traffic then it drops off to next to nothing for canada and europe and they pay nothing at all for all the other countries. so I would bet that 90%+ of the computers with their crap on it are in the US. I wonder what percentage of the US population is online, that has to make a pretty big dent into our traffic.

Stopped reading the thread at this point because other than moaning I see nothing positive, nothing concrete and zero action to stop this other than blaming the sponsor. No one will actually name many sponsors, other than the few who we already know.

So here is an idea, let's some of you clever guys think it through and put meat on it's bones.

WE DO NOT SELL TO NEWBIE SURFERS, THEY ARE LOOKING AT THE FREE STUFF AND NOT BUYING, (in general). We sell to the experienced, we pay for the rest to surf.

We educate the surfer, the dangers of downloading scum ware, adware and anything else to his computer. On free sites, TGP, Link Lists, Blogs, galleries, paysites and any other sites within the adult community. We assume anyone not displaying, or allowing us to display an ad/link to a site telling the surfer the dangers is with the enemy and we boycott them.

Yes we cut off traffic to those who do not support, we stop posting galleries on sites who do not support, we simply let them make their own decisions where their future lies.

Let's see what the support is like for the fight.

If anyone has a better solution please come up with it, if you think we should boycott those who do support adware or what ever it is, please come up with a list so I can know who is who.

Zango isn't too forward about where those surfers are from. While the paid joins are best from places like the US, obivously sending a huge number of people from a country that can't read the english instructions might get you many installs (but have little real value except in upping your apparent popup rates).

I would bet based on the numbers they are talking about that well more than 20% of the US popular has or had zango / 180 / seekmo on their computer.

Interestingly, this sort of shows a probably decline for Zango over the long run. They can only chrun so much before they are going to run out of new cusotmers to infect (sorry, umm, "get to happily agree to install the helpful and useful Zango product").

Also have to consider that the coming of Vista will almost certainly put at least a short term damper on things as people dump their existing systems and re-install cleanly with all the crap gone, or just buy a new computer and scrap the old one.

I think that Zango may have already peaked out and be falling down the other side to the hole that swallowed Gator:

http://www.claria.com/gainexit/

http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...403_201560.htm

paul - Ive already started this on another board and hopefully this will be one time when we can all put aside out board differences - and work to solve this together as all of the major traffic players are centered around probably 6 or 7 boards - I know that at least one other board in addition to the one I posted on has agreed to this collaboration - and I believe from what Ive read here that Pierre would already be behind this action (he's already doing similar stuff) as well as the Hun

GFY mods - can we do this?

Linkster, the problem is that is very hard to say if it is the program or an affiliate doing the nasty deed. A company like AFF could stop buying from toolbars, but one of their affiliates could keep it up. Who do you blame?

Worse, companies can just create phantom accounts and buy traffic themselves, and when you "catch" them, they blame an affiliate in Trashcanistan or where ever and there is no real easy way to prove otherwise.

You cannot police program owner morals, and this is one of those issues that Nick@Ilynx would love... how much morals can you afford?

This has nothing to do with where the traffic comes from or how it gets there. The sites choose themselves whether they are pro or anti telling the surfer about these programs. We teach the surfer why he should avoid it, how to get rid of it and what programs will protect his computer. The surfer makes his own decision.

The sponsors, message boards, tgp sites, gallery submitters decide whether they want to tell the surfer, with a link to all the information, or ignore it. Affiliates will see the link or it will not be there and it will be their decision if they want to work with the site.

So an affiliate can send adware/scumware traffic to a site with or without the link. Might not be to clever to send traffic to a site that will undo the the program that sent them there. Affiliates not using this method can decide for themselves if they want to send traffic to a site that supports the campaign to educate the surfer or not.

Short term it might cost a few some money, long term it might keep their job.

But this business is not famed for thinking long term.

For instance if GFY does not have the banner those against the method stop, reading, posting and advertising, if AFF do not have the banner affiliates can choose if they want to deal with AFF or not.

Just using the above as examples and I'm sure that would both support a campaign like this.

To date I see nothing from the "Anti" adware side to reduce the effect of adware and it's a case of organise or buy some traffic and let the chattering continue to go no where.

A quick check of server logs showed 2.8% of surfers that came through on Saturday had Zango (announced)... if that holds true across the entire porn internet, they are getting access to millions of hits per day.

RawAlex - I guess the best way to answer your question is with a question - if an affiliate program continues to accept sales from an affiliate that is using these methods, arent they still just as culpable? So really it doesnt make a difference in my mind whether the program or one of their affiliates does the keyword buying/installs - it is still stealing from their other affiliate partners whether it be the small-time guy that does one sale a month or the cross sale program that does a hundred.

When I announced the three prong approach on the other board - I was primarily basing my listing of sponsors that are accepting these referrals or supporting these installs as both an "education of the webmasters" and an "inform the programs" comprehensive list so that if a program is unaware that they have affiliates that are bidding on the keywords(which in this day and age I find hard to believe they wouldnt have a clue) then once they are on the list it would seem a pretty easy fix to remove those offending affiliates.

Im basing most of this on what places like commission junction and other major mainstream aff programs did back in 2004 to combat this - and remember quite well the sudden removal of many programs from their rolls that Im sure cost those aff sales companies quite a bit - Im not out for blood(yet) but just to inform and take my own actions to make sure that these programs dont get any of my traffic

BTW Alex - I also did a check earlier in the day yesterday on one of my higher traffic sites and my rate was right at 0.8% - and that was just for the zango UA

I completely agree: this is business, therefore it is the impact of what is being done which matters most. In any case and has been pointed out, there is no way to tell whether an "affiliate" is really an affiliate or not.

There is also a broader issue. In my experience, virtues and vices are rarely confined to a single aspect of either individual or corporate conduct. That's because things such as honesty are fundamentals of human behavior. A dishonest person will not conduct every single transaction dishonestly, but their dishonesty will show up in many aspects of their lives.

I think that once a sponsor has shown himself capable of behaving unethically (which is a polite way of putting it), self-protection demands you assume that lack of standards will apply to other areas of his operation. It's not only naive to believe otherwise, it's plain foolish when there are always plenty of sponsors to choose from who appear to be "clean".

I know it won't happen, but every single affiliate should have dropped every sponsor who has been shown in these threads as being customers of or tolerating scumware. Not only because of the sheer stupidity of working with someone who is stealing from you or turns a blind eye to those who do, but because for everything we are aware of, there will be a dozen things going on of which we are not. Every time we let another scam go by without making anyone pay, we might as well be hanging out an invite for the next crook who happens along.

Couldn't agree more :thumbsup

I haven't read all of the posts in this thread but one thing remains hilarious
in this industry and that's the hiocracy of so many people who work in this
industry. As long as porn has been around we try to lure, trick and pull
the surfer into buying something.

spam, popups, prechecked cross sales, dialers, adware, etc,etc our industry mostly invented it and we all exploited it till it was beyond death. But now
when something comes around that might compete with your wallet we cry
murder and scream of the top of our lungs it's immoral and unethical....
Whenever I read that tears of joy roll down my face. Adult webmasters
using big words like immoral and unethical....and all of a sudden we care about
the surfers.

I'm not taking sides here to be honest I don't even know what this zango shit
is all about and I could care less. But just to see all you kiddies get your
panties in a twist makes me laugh in utter disbelieve. Just like how some
of you cry babies scream if you get an newsletter from an affiliate program
that you push.....and scream STOP SPAMMING ME!!!!

Like it or not you're all leeches. You feed on others people their wallet.
You claim to sell fantasies which far too often turns out to be an illusion.
And don't try to blame it on the sponsors as all of you created this monster
coz you want free hosting, free content, free hosted galleries, $50 per trial
signup, revshare is something most of you hate, so stop bitching coz unless
you resort to these tactics there's no way in hell anyone could make money
in an ethical and moral way.

Want to improve this industry? Take a long look in the mirror and start
promoting sites with quality sites instead of cookie cutter sites who offer
p.p.s. and give cool toys away every week.

So I had to get that off my chest...start flaming away and tell me how
wrong I am and that all of you are not like that....:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I'll spark up a joint now and sit back and enjoy some more of this great
comedy. Damn I love this industry.....:pimp

Linkster, Sparky checked my overall and found 2.8%... some people here are reporting as high as 5%... it depends on your traffic sources and whatnot, I am assuming.

ZANGO IS SCUMWARE.

Glad to see the general public is catching on. I see more MYSPACE profiles telling people to take ZANGO off their computer.

you could have just posted that one sentence and that would have summed it up.

For someone that doesn't know anything about it you sure do seem to have a lot to say about it.

I think people like you sum up a good portion of this idustry, uniformed idiots that like to run their mouth and bitch but have no idea what they are talking about.

First of all you really should spend 10 mins and read up on this before you form an opinion and post, at lenght about it.

trying to lure, trick, and pull a surfer into buying something is for the most part "marketing".

When someone spam, popups, cross sales, etc, they are doing so with their own traffic.

spyware steals traffic from other webmasters. Huge difference.

Care about the surfers? Where have you heard that? You have heard things like we need to educate them about spyware. If you would have read a little more you have been able to understand we want to educate them so they get spyware off of their pcs so signups are not stolen from us.

Those statements sure say a lot about your program.