One other thing to consider in your lawsuit - the FTC fined them for their practices last year for $3 mill - a drop in the bucket for them - and they didnt change any of their practices in accordance with their agreement with the FTC - they are still doing exactly the same things they were hit for - they have even gone so far as to sue (although they lost) spyware removal/detection software manufacturers for including them as malware - half the programs out there that people run for spyware removal dont guard against this shit - and worst - most of the installs get done through Zangos "spam protection" advertisement popups

i am well aware that zango isnt the only name they use. they use hotbar too and atleast 3 or 4 others. and i said that those made up for about 3% of our traffic.

how do you expect a sponsor to fix this? how can a sponsor control what someone else totally unrelated to their sites does if they have no control over the pages that get popped by a 3rd party on a surfers machine?

I have 1 site that gets hit and thats epiccams and since I dont allow zango traffic, zango does not send me traffic, but instead redirects it to their own cam sponsor. so there is no afifliate ID to change. does this make any sense to you? zangos bullshit does not touch my sites, they STEAL the surfer away by popping over my join page. there is nothing to fix

fuck zango

this sure strengthens my case and the others that have the balls to stand up and fight against them. they are going to stop doing this to my company guaranteed and are also going to pay me for any money lost for the time that they have been doing this to my site.

at this point it is every man for himself unfortunately, unless a federal judge shuts them down and doesnt just fine them. more people need to get off their ass and sue them and maybe they will leave adult for good. and then idiots like lars and quicksucks, i mean quickbucks wont be able to abuse systems like zango.

You certainly can control what happens on the surfers computer - its just as easy to fix as it was to override the popup blockers - just some simple programming

I kind of expected that your really wouldnt be concerned with the affiliates' losses - thats pretty much every sponsors stance since you arent losing any money on that end - its just us that send the traffic that lose out - not whining or anything - just seeing how much reverse loyalty there is among sponsors - and so far Ive only found one company that cares one way or the other about their affiliates being robbed

You want good attorneys to take zango on? See sig. :2 cents: :2 cents:

goodluck hope u get them suckers theyve been playing around with this shit for to long its time everyone joint together and finished them

Their business practice falls under the FTC.. and they settled with them, so it went no further..

The manner in which their business affects other businesses needs to be tested in the courts... without settlement..

If any laws are in fact being broken, it needs to be established..

Paying settlements here & there does nothing but keep them on the streets doing business as usual..

Welcome to CHARGEBACK CITY


i would think. why people would risk their merchant accounts over some extra joins is beyond me. fuck, enough surfers now know that you can chargeback adult shit so easy anyhow nowadays. people must really be desperate to put food on the table now a days.

I don't think you are on the same page with what he is saying. He will not accept zango traffic, therefore when his affiliates send traffic to epiccams the people with zango on their pc will be redirected to another site like cams.com for example. His affiliate loses sales, he loses sales. This isn't what was happening over a year ago where ifriends affiliates were targeting ifriends urls, so the traffic was basically getting traded from one affiliate to the other and the company was still making the sale. When he doesn't allow his affiliates to use zango traffic nor does he use it himself (like cams/aff, sex search, and sexbankoll did), then he loses out just as much as his affiliates.


The only way he can control what happens on his end is to detect zango traffic and block it. He still loses the sale though, conversions and RIO for people promoting his site will still be affected badly, the only thing that does is stop the people who are trying to steal profit from getting his traffic. In that case no one gets it. Thats all he can do short of sueing zango.

BTW, FunWebProducts (from everything I have read) is not related to zango.

thank you. i was about to give up on this guy. he wasnt getting it or i wasnt explaining it good enough. maybe i expect too much out of people

For once I wish you success

since you put it that way, then i am surely going to fight with all my power and strenght and might. i am doing this for you bake. for you bro!

Linkster, in their lawsuit there was an issue with something ZANGO was doing that they were fined for which didn't apply to HOTBAR. Now if you notice on the screens, you'll see the bottom of the screen say 'this product/ad or whatever brought to you by Hotbar'

So there was some technicality - I'd have to find the court documents to show you.


Pimpdog - it's been ever since the US stopped allowing gambling - once they couldn't focus on gambling anymore, they shifted their ad buys to Adult.
Anyhow - everyone that laughed or ignored it thought they were immune - the truth is none of you/us are (including the mainstream guys). You're (not you particularly) just seeing it hurt your bottomline now cuz although the income wasn't decreasing or showing much of a difference then, if the sales haven't grown in the past two years, you're now seeing that the rebills aren't as big as they should be.

I'm glad everyone's now waking up - remember who you trade traffic with/buy traffic from/upsell to. If they fund companies such as Zango - they are not your partners, in fact, they are your worst competitor cuz they can't even play on a level field - they depend on YOUR success, YOUR affiliates, to make money - and they give you some scraps with 'trades'.

good post and well put

You probably don't have us on the list of sponsors that care but just for the record we are readying our siege engines and gathering munitions for our trebuchets to launch.

I think most realize at this point that we are not ones to make idle threats about this kind of stuff either.

I know you are no different than me is this aspect. I didn't spend hours on here trying to educate people and fight the asshole companies who were supporting zango just for the greater good of the people. I was fighting for me, but in order to protect myself I needed everyone else's help, and informing them and posting on here was one of the few things I could do. If you sue I hope you win and even though you are not doing it for people they will still be thankful.

Two things I would strongly recommend, get your attorney in touch with Ben Edelman ( http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/180-affiliates ) and have him do lots of resource on the Gator spyware lawsuits.

hehehe if you're taking this one on - then I do believe they will change their MO or you're definitely going to get REAL immunity for everyone who signs on with you.

:thumbsup

Bingo - Ben is the man!
Also - there's Kellie from AffiliateFairPlay.com (I hope I got her domain right) who's very proficient on spyware too.

im with Far-L on this one. the more the better. and I learned a class action is def not the way to go

Many thanks to Will76 and HS-Trixxxia for pointing out those resources and to Pimpdogg for bringing them to my attention too off the board. I will certainly be passing them along.:thumbsup

no problem, give'em hell.

and when you see Zango tell them Will76 said hi. :winkwink:

you also should get in touch with ccbill. I know they have info that can help you are well, and I strongly suspect they are working on something too.

I know it is not much but it can't hurt and certainly can be a good grassroots effort that can be done cheaply but possibly lead to nice counter-measures... everyone that is being effected should be contacting the FTC and filing a complaint...

Will76 - I am sure you have urged that a million times but can't hurt to repeat it.

:thumbsup

You cannot stop someone from linking to you.

god damn i hate morons.

but you sure the hell can stop them from stealing your joins.

wrong thread ? :upsidedow cause that made absolutely no sense in regards to this thread.

Very interesting and kudos to the guys that are actually doing something about the problem.

Just curious as an observor, this company Zango...... who are the principles of the company, is it owned by one guy?... are they American or?? any photos of the owners around on the net to put a face on the company?

Thats a good question someone should dig up some info and post it here.

they are several guys and are in seattle

I did find a picture:








http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/devil.gif

From what I understand their corporate offices are in Bellevue which is just a hop, skip, and jump from where I am in Seattle.

Before anyone suggests that I just go down there and mow them all down with an uzi forget about it. We like spending money too much on attorneys to let an opportunity like that fall to the wayside... :winkwink::1orglaugh

Your chances against zango is pretty slim, I would suspect their legall team is taking a yearly payroll of someone that ends with 6 zeroes, not to mention the $3 million fine they got by the FTC wasnt even enough for them to bother and move their operations offshore :2 cents:
They can burry you in paperwork for years if they like, so hope you catch them on a good day

Far-L, Trey you might want to check out this url.


www.cjclassaction.com

mighty interesting....

interesting link i see one of the legal teams is in Seattle. Looking at some of the recent cases these guy are dealing with some big stuff....

read this part in particular...

http://www.cjclassaction.com/Carrier...aint_Final.pdf

skip down to the part " B. Adware and Affiliate Commission theft".

It explains the process very well. However in this case it looks like a bunch of CJ affiliates are sueing CJ for allowing some of their affiliates to use "adware" and to not protect their other affiliates from being stolen from.

Sounds familar ? AFF affiliates would have an even better case. It was AFF and not their affiliates who ADMITED to using zango, which took sales away from their own affiliates.

Interesting stuff. I would definetly have your attornies read over it, and if you still looking for one Trey you might want to contact them.

Zango is mentioned but in this case they are going after CJ for allowing it, instead of Zango for doing it.

You know this whole popup issue could of been resolved with the anti spyware billed that was signed back in 2004. I read some were they were rushed for time and and didn't have a chance to discuss it.

Here is a list of some of the co-sponsors of the bill. Maybe if we can get enough
webmaster contacting these people might put a spotlight on this http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquer...8:HR02929:@@@P

You are talking to the owner of a company that took on two law suits at the same time against companies with over $100 million in assets each. Facing off for years against teams of lawyers that make those kind of numbers per year or more.

And anyone who knows me would tell you that I am not hot headed, sue happy, or a gambling man. But I am patient. And I will fight for good causes... like my companies bottom line.

I know, my comment was primary targetted towards pimpdog.
As far as I KNOW you have a trademark which they gained proffits from, they also tarnished your trademark and brand by hijacking customers and delivering content that is not your own content, making the consumer belive it is your content which obviously lower the value of your brand.
Gives you a much stronger case since you can sue for not only lost income but also estimated loss from your brand value.
In your case you should include "Zango & Advertiser(s)", Zango may not be too scared of lawsuits, but I am rather sure the advertiser(s) bidding on the words will be happy to inform who helped them suggest keywords which could place the liability on Zango. Asuming the advertiser is another john doe webmaster working from home trying to earn some easy money.
PS. hit me up on ICQ if you wanna have a small chat