Let's sue Zango, I'll give $1000

valid point. I would be more optimistic if I had seen certain big aff.programs step against it, in the contrary though...

There several things that haven't been posted about zango the similar systems even after all these drama threads. For example:

Assuming you have aff.program A taking over #1 bid for their keywords to protect their business. This translates that just a % of the popups will be for this advertiser. Any advertiser can jump and take over 2nd, 3rd etc position with a starting min bid of 1.5cents. Right now I can go and bid on AFF/cams.com/sexsearch.com etc keywords and popup my own ads. So bottom line, do they actually protect their keywords? No, they just hijack sales from their affiliates.

don't forget other sites too... The whole " protect our traffic " is a smoke screen. They are not just buying their keywords (domains names), they are buying several other sites domains as well.

I don't think you understand how zango works, they don't run any sites, so there is no way they can get nailed for 2257 violation. All they do is pop a popup when certain event happens. In most cases the event is when someone goes to certain site, popup gets popped. They could just as easily pop a popup when you open winamp to play an mp3, or when you watch a video clip with media player or even each time you start ms word.

unless you know something i don't ... zango does not work like that. its basically a ppc engine and you can bid on competitive URL's as keywords. they might be bidding on cams.com - but so are 30 other people. so the net effect in terms of "protecting their traffic" is almost ZERO

You just need to piss off the right people like I posted in another thread. Norm Zadeh for example, who got a settlement from AdultCheck. Show him URLs where AFF is paying them while they use his content.. or see if Zango is popping up over his sites.

he.. didn't mean to argue or sound like it (although i usually do anyway) - i meant to just point out that there is no merit at all to an argument like "we are forced to do it" because "doing it" doesn't change a whole lot since many other people are also bidding on cams.com. even having the number one position does mean much if there are 30 people bidding on it.

going further, if many people are bidding on it anyway and it represents such a tiny fraction of traffic as he claims, then its not possible to justify it.

I've talked about lawsuits against adware companies with Kellie and Ben Edelman several times before. Because most adware programs, and that includes zango, do NOT overwrite cookies themselves, it's not a winnable lawsuit for affiliates.

The ones who could sue adware companies, and SHOULD, are affiliate programs/sponsors for adware that display ads over their own sites and totally cover them. ALL these cases have been won or settled before and can/will be won again.

There are way too many ways that affiliates get cheated by adware and those who use these programs to steal. As Ben explained to me, it would be extremely difficult and confusing to try to document every occurrence for every sponsor, WHO popped the ad and stole the sale, explain every technical detail in court of each popup, how it happens, how it works, etc., and trying to put a money value to the amount lost, especially when the adware program itself does nothing wrong in this sense.

Let sponsors sue adware companies, they would win. We, affiliates, probably wouldn't and we'd spend a fortune trying.

CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS FOR AFFILIATES...

I sent Ben the links to the zango threads last month. Ben, Kellie and lawyers consulted on behalf of affiliates (mainstream AND porn) have said that it would be much easier and a more "winnable" case if affiliates sued SPONSORS for breach of contract. All TOS say that if a surfer comes from YOUR link, the commission is payable to YOU. With adware, this part of the affiliate agreement is broken. There has been plenty of proof posted in this forum alone about several sponsors who KNOW about it and are not doing anything to stop it. That's a direct breach of contract, doesn't get any clearer than that.

Sue ONE sponsor as a class action suit and win and see how many sponsors will drop their adware advertising after that.

You have to hurt ONE sponsor where it hurts most to get the ball rolling.

Missie

They do own a site, zango.com
You think they have permission for all those flash videos and games on there?

I doubt it

Exactly what the problem is these days, noone cares about anything but themselves, so tyrants, scammers, punks, bunko artists, thieves, and just
plain fucking greed takes over the world... one nickel at a time

So why not sue AFF? They seem to be one of the biggest sponsors around not giving a shit about stealing our traffic. I'd be all for it.