Make sure to bookmark your post, just for reference :winkwink: I still remember when Amex completely pulled billing for adult when Xpics ripped off people by billing them many months after they cancelled and other shit. Looks like some of today's smartasses didn't learn from the past.

This is a great measure. Also, the "Freeones trusted sites seal" is a must to reward honest sponsors.
Personally, I just removed all links to sponsors that have hidden xsells, but then again I dont have a fraction of your traffic.

Hmmmm...how do I with my freesites "reward" the people who pay me? There is some kinda strange logic there bro. I think the sponsor rewards the affiliate for the traffic they send. Not the other way around. It's a two way street for sure. But our sponsors are the ones that make it possible for us to even be affiliates. I'm unaware of any business anywhere that has what are basically salesmen trying to tell the company whose product they sell that they are going to "reward" them.

Says the guy who thinks return customers are unheard of...

Hey what do you know, Freeones has return customers, go figure.

As an affiliate, I can point my surfers to those sponsors that will not screw them over.
I stopped promoting most revshare sites because most of them didn't rebill. Now I know one of the reasons why.

Maybe if I knew back then about the kind of shady shit sponsors where doing to surfers,and stopped promoting them while promoting more honest sponsors, I would have seen more rebills and made more money. That's my reward right there.

Maybe "reward" isnt the right word (english is not my first language). Maybe a trusted site seal of approval or something.

not sure many know this, but you guys were the ones that invented the prechecked crossell

the difference between a precheck and a non-precheck is that the precheck your giving them something they did not ask for that they need to first notice to take out of the cart.

id guess my test of whether something is "tricky" or not is after the transaction is complete, does the consumer felt they were treated fairly

i sure wouldnt

What is with your disdain toward affiliates? This notion that affiliates should bow down to sponsors and thank them for even existing.

Fact is that traffic is king on the web. If you have good traffic, you have money and power. As for other businesses where "salesmen" are telling companies whose products they are selling that they are "rewarding" them, try Google, Yahoo, and any site on the web that sells advertising to people in one form or another.

That's how I choose to promote heavily or not too. I watch sales and rebills (I do revshare with everything) If a site sells great and rebills great...that is all I need to know. Obviously the site is good in those circumstances and the customer is satisfied. All the rest of this talk is exactly what Doc and Dollarman Steve are pointing out...a bunch of people theorizing and giving opinions and hearsay. Numbers don't lie. Bottom line. But so far, all the people who either don't own a pay program and/or have never used xsells have refused to accept that. They just keep saying over and over that they KNOW it's bad and just can't be working. Meanwhile, the guys who are doing it are making fortunes. They couldn't do that if everybody was charging back. Or even canceling. I know most people keep thinking that surfers are stupid. But as has been said repeatedly...we are ALL used to prechecked boxes on forms. They are everywhere on the internet both adult and mainstream. And everybody that signs up for a website has a credit card and a bank account. They buy stuff online all the time. They KNOW to scroll down and they KNOW to look for fine print. I just think this has all been a lot of drama and a way for Freeones to try and raise their payout again. :pimp

And what screen resolution is this "hidden" x-sale based on?

Can you give me some examples of mainstream companies that are prechecking products/services that are 3 times the amount someone is paying? You mention how this is happening in mainstream all the time but have yet to give any examples of these sites. I'd be curious to see which ones do it.

I have no disdain for affiliates. I've been one for over 10 years. And if you knew my history in the biz you'd know that I'm pretty familiar with traffic too. I'm just saying that as an affiliate I get paid by the paysite. I AM a salesman. Or if I want to flatter myself I call it "marketing". lol I didn't mean for my post to come across like I had any disdain for affiliates. I make most of my money that way and have made money with just about every program in this business. I just wouldn't have the audacity to assume that I can control what they do. Yes, I can choose what I promote and don't promote. But I can't reward them and neither can you. Not unless you are gonna start writing them checks instead of the other way around.

Can you give me any examples of our colleagues doing that? All I see are one dollar and free trials that rebill in a couple of days. I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm just saying that xsells are legal, commonly used, and have been around for almost a decade and most of you are just now noticing.

You reward them by allowing their ads to appear on your site and make them money. Reward isn't a good term for it though.

And you do have the ability to change what they do. If major sites stop promoting certain sponsors, they will adjust. That's just business. When Google comes out and says "We don't like you using the word teen on your site" when using Adwords, you bet your ass just about everyone who wants that traffic will change their site to comply.

I'm not the one claiming that this is a common practice in mainstream. You said it is and I'm asking to provide some examples since it happens "all the time". The only major company I know of that does it is Intelius and they have been torched for it.

Most registrars have upsells, I have seem them checked over the years, privacy crap auto added in, ect. Easy to spot when they have a total at the end of a shopping cart, but still.

And I some how ordered a computer pen I didn't need, I think from tigerdirect, like 2 bucks or something. I called up and they said you must have agreed to one of special offers.

Then Airlines, the entire thing is a forced upsell right up your ass.

You have great points pocketkangaroo I can only not promote them. OR, I can figure a way to demand more money to promote them. That's all I can do. I don't want to promote anybody who I think is crooked. And if I believe that they are, I simply won't promote them. But I can see with my own two eyes what is selling and what is not selling and what is rebilling or not in Stats Remote. And I see some former good selling sites that have NEVER used x-sells and their sales are in the toilet because their entire members areas are on every tube and torrent. I see other sites WITH x-sells who convert and rebill. Something has happened over the last 2 years. My TGP's have less traffic, sales for the big generic hardcore sites with the LA girls are down...What has changed? hahaha? X-sells? Or could it be that everybodies sites are ripped?
I just spent my money and my time to stop that with my paysite. And my sales are going up again. hahaha doesn't affect my sales. Xsells don't affect me. Tubes and torrents were damn sure starting to affect my paysites growth. Now we are growing again. That is my point of view from my own vantage point.

so if you get caught cheating on your wife, are you just going to tell her that "well, thats not as bad as bobby from softball who, hooks up with girls all the time"

your wife (and the people going to your site) you are responsible for

I haven't and wouldn't cheat on my wife so I can't really relate. However, if I did, I would simply ask her to join in.

Anyway, I was simply providing examples for the gents above. My view on this is pretty clear, just read the first page.


Then if anyone feels I'm wrong, well I'm always here so have at it.

so if you kill somebody, is your defence going to be "well shit, your honor, pol pot killed millions of people in cambodia and nothing happened to him, no idea why you are hassling me"

i can find any practice and parallel it with something else, no matter how bad. im good at this, try me.

somebody should throw some of these webmasters in a room with their "customers" see how long they survive

Damn whatif_3 I can see where you got your nickname bro! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh "Whatif" you blew up a city and then you would say that's not as bad as blowing up a whole country! :1orglaugh

Come on back to the subject at hand. You're comparing apples and oranges. This is business. If you don't want to make money with someone because you are morally outraged then just don't promote them. If enough people stop promoting them, then maybe they will change. Maybe not. It's none of our business what someone else does with their business. We can't force anybody to do anything. We can only make our own choices.

Very nice!

Off topic: PPjohn, I'm one of your affiliates and your shit kicks ass! I'm liking the new big tit stuff too. Very hot. :pimp

Alright, I didn't read the last two pages, but I just gotta be clear here. You can't just "not promote" cross sale sponsors.

People submit galleries

It is damn near impossible to know everything about what sponsor they are using, and whether or not there are cross-sales even there, because maybe there are only cross sales for brazillians, whatever.

People already know about brooke skye. If people like her, they are going to that fucking site, period, and when they search freeones or pichunter, and she's not there. They are going to type in the domain, or search it on google, and WHAM still cross sale'd...

So, if you at least have a warning, or a link that's designated clean there's a possibility they can join brooke skye without the hassle.

PH and FreeOnes are more like Search engines, we don't "promote" as much as we "aggregate all porn"

BTW, TheDoc, what the hell are you doing to help anything other than flaming progress threads?

Yeah Tarpy you have a problem there with still taking submits. We stopped all that back in 2003, but I remember the headaches you are going through. BUT, we used to do our submissions by hand. And we did have specific rules just as you do. I think you could choose not to promote them...which is what you said you were going to do in your thread about the subject. You said you were going to start weeding them out. And that is definitely your decision to make.

I know you have to have a spider that checks those for changes in the galleries. We all had systems like that going back to 1998. I don't envy you still taking submissions. But you can definitely control it. We did back then and I'm sure you still keep a tight reign on it now.

So you are going to "not promote" them correct? Which is exactly the right thing to do if you think it's a bad deal. I'm gonna promote the revshare sponsors that make me the most money over the years. Just like I always have.

Tarpy. I just saw the cliphunter thread. Went over there and found this

http://www.cliphunter.com/w/143849/C...and_Sexy_Karen

What the fuck? Take that shit off there. Goddamn it

Looks like removeyourcontent already took it off of the original tube site that you embedded from. But goddamn it! That is still making use of my content with no link at all back to me. That is stealing. Fucking dating site ads on the page.

You don't work for the company that invented the xsell and not know it or how it works inside and out.

The data tells you everthing you need to know. We could debate all night long about the ethics. There is absolutely nothing unethical about a clearly visible precheck or unchecked xsell above the submit button IMHO. The people who are joining these sites are adults with brains. Some people think it's unethical for someone to have to uncheck a check box, but ethics is a sliding scale.

Also, everyone talks as if the primary and/or xsell product somehow don't offer value. Members' areas get better and better every month and the consumer gets more and more and more and more for their money. Let's get real people, even if someone had 2 concurrent memberships billing at $40 a month - that's $80 per month - the equivalent of maybe 4 adult DVDs bought on sale at a video store. Those monthly memberships probably offer access to hundreds, maybe thousands of DVDs, feeds, live sex products, etc, etc.

I'll reiterate again, we have to be the only industry in the world that apologizes when we charge money for something. We give more and more value, charge less and less per month... less revenue only makes it more difficult for EVERYONE to make money, programs and webmasters alike.

No business should ever apologize for making money. The sole reason a business exists is to make money. If you provide value to a consumer you deserve to make money, it's how capitalism works - you take risk and get rewarded.

godaddy

They advertise 8.95 domains yet have crazy aggressive trans path, easily trying to ring you up for 5 times that.

"Cross sale" is of course an industry term. Something like "extra charges" would be better.

Firstly i will recognise that x-sales are a legal way of upselling customers in a range of industries, not just adult, and if you make the decision to use 'legitimate' unchecked x-sales ABOVE the submit button then that is of course your choice.

What I cant understand is any program that uses pre-checked, half hidden and/or unrelated xsells as it really will hurt your bottom line in the long run. For alot of programs it is the number of surfers who re-bill that determines profitability (especially when the PPS>monthly access) and when a surfer signs up expecting to be billed just the $1 for his porn trial at site x but finds charges from sites y and z as well they surely wont be happy about hanging around for 3 lots of rebills.

The programs engaging in this dodgy practice must know that when a surfer has a bad experience on one site he is alot less likely to sign up to any site in the future, 'once bitten twice shy' anyone. So not only are they screwing themselves in the long run they screw everyone else over in the meantime.

If only programs in the adult industry could learn to treat surfers with a bit of respect instead of the usual 'surfers are retarded, can barely spell their name' crap, who knows, maybe they would feel a bit better about paying for your porn then going to redtube or pornbb.

I think this move by Freeones to at least point out the varying degrees of dodginess on these sites is a step in the right direction but their certainly needs to be some kind of recognition for sites who are totally legit and wont hurt your creditability with your surfers.

For the record JuicyBucks does not offer x-sales in any form on our join pages as we don't see any benefit from being underhanded with our sales techniques and we also offer console free links for our webmasters with no payout penalty.

GoDaddy for the most part is B2B. An extremely high percentage of their customer base knows exactly what those unchecked upsells are.

What's going on at a lot of porn sites is pure trickery aimed specifically at people who do not understand the adult internet. This is unfortunate because these people are probably not very knowledgeable in the area of tubes, boards and torrents either. In other words, super prime targets to sell to that should be treated very well.

When you earn the surfers confidence, they buy from you. Don't some of you idiots know this?

Once again we see progressive thinking and action from Roald and FreeOnes.
It is good that an industry leader like FreeOnes has enough business savvy and common sense to step up and attempt to address the current self destructive trend of hidden xsells the industry has taken.
That takes balls.
Instead of pissing and moaning, maybe some constructive criticism can take place to come up with some helpful ideas to help Roald refine the FreeOnes proposed changes to their business model that is being put in place to further the trust factor with the clients (surfers), resulting in continued membership sales. The current prevalent practice of hidden xsells is sure to impact the surfers willingness to signup for a membership.
Longevity is better for our industry, not short term gains. :2 cents:

yea man

i agreed with your first statement. i would never fault a man for doing what he has to to put food on his familys table, and this is a tough world.

but dont pull this shit that its not deceptive. call it what it is. your doing what you have to do to make $$$. its ok. *some* other people would love to be in your spot

it is pretty common knowledge that vanderpool/python/you guys invented the prechecked crossell. wasnt sure if everyone was aware.

the reality here is that guys that make their $$ off of crossells really dont have a lot of content to offer that isnt saturated on a few tube sites. and consumer loyalty is a concept foreign to them.

not that i think that investing a lot into content at this point would get a lot more consumers rebilling.

i think that there were people that came to that fork in the road, decided to go the evil risk-management way rather than the good biz provide value way, and that road eventually leads to slaughter

I disagree, and have my data that supports this but i cannot prove that to you so will end this with one last thing since i feel you went on a different road then what i intended to say. It's not that relevant anyway since you were talking about pre-checks above submit. Just wanted to add i the remark that surfers are not smart and can't read well.


The "selective retardation" as you have nicelly put it is not there. The surfer is able to do what he knows and is familiar with. Credit card number, cvv, name, surname, address, etc. Those are all things he is familiar with. Putting chick name in google, or visiting freeones (or anything else) because someone in his office/company told him to visit that and look there, he also knows. He knows how to click around. Knowing that when he reads "free" and it's not free actually, is something he does not know. Expecting checkboxes bellow the submit button he also doesn't know. Signing up to free site where he has to input CC number for validation, and then on the fine print it says he has to cancle in 30 minutes or else it will rebill, is something he does not know. Anyway, you have enough members to make your own estimate on this. I believe the numbers would match if you did.
No offense, but you never really processed enough members to have a real statistical case on this, however, the captcha reference is to an issue that is supposed to be something well known to the surfer, yet a relativelly high percentage (for something regarded as commonly known) has issues with it still.

A guy with a hard cock in his hand will buy anyway. The primal need to ejaculate trumps good and fair business or even common sense sometimes. :2 cents:

You can not pay us to advertise on our site since we don't sell (yet?). Ofcourse if we would we would have some sort of check before we put anything up.

Hey guys,

This is a great step forwards, and I really hope this will inspire more people to take action against these hidden cross sales. I am pretty sure that every customer who has ever been fucked up by these kind of cross sales, never will join a porn site anymore. I hope that your system is really going to make a difference!

Wow - the insider guy really knows! You may want to dump who is ever feeding you the bullshit.

Like your xsale info, straight up bullshit and wrong. Of course you are to stupid to admit that, but I can look past that. Then someone that could "build and test captcha", it really sounds like you have the captcha data to backup your cock holster. So really...


Could you please just turn your bullshit spew spout off, it's just stupid at this point.

Sorry i offended you, but your 300 to 800 members doesn't make you have enough statistical data for me to consider valid.

I'm turning it off now.

UPDATE

http://www.hostones.com/temp/board/warninglevel4.gif

We added a green/check icon for sponsors we think are clean ones.

Sample: http://www.freeones.com/html/e_links/Eva_Angelina/

NOTE: We are in the process of adding everything in our backend.

Maybe my settings are different for them, but nothing I see is prechecked with GoDaddy. There are a lot of things they try and upsell you on, but they are blatantly in front of your face and not prechecked.

Roald, so will the green checkmarks be extended to submitted galleries too? Or will they be limited to your own sponsor FHG's?

Not sure about this yet, we need to think this over.

Ok, I can't even imagine the amount of work involved in re-reviewing all galleries listed on your pages :)

As I recall you are defaulted into a 2 year registration, but before you even get to that part there's 2 or 3 upsells, then they "precheck" you into "customize my order" which has 6 upsells. Personally I believe the godaddy process is way more deceptive and aggressive, and the products they are selling are garbage.

I'm not sure. I've used them for awhile so I think my settings are saved in their system. I always pick the quick checkout option.