sextracker VERY close from getting blacklisted on The Hun's
 

I was checking sites today when I came across a blind banner by SexTracker:

http://www.amazingjokes.com/sextracker.jpg

Well, no news there...

Clicking it brought me to http://start.sextracker.com/Pornstars/ which has the text 'FREE XXX DOWNLOAD! NO BULLSHIT - FREE HARDCORE DOWNLOAD! NO CREDITCARD NEEDED'. The instant you click the FREE download you'll be hammered with a dialer that doesn't take 'no' for an answer. I always thought advertising a dialer (that charges a lot of money) is advertised with 'FREE XXX DOWNLOAD' was a big no-no. Also, a dialer that doesn't take the simple two letter word 'no' for an answer. VERY annoying.

In detail... I click the 'FREE XXX DOWNLOAD' and get the FCI dialer right away. Obviously I click 'no'. I get a popup after that: 'You must click "yes" to continue'. HELLOOOHOOO!! BULLSHIT! A stupid, cheap attempt to make people click yes... I click 'ok' on the popup and get the dialer again. I click 'no' and get a page with blind thumbs and movies, all linked to the dialer. Many people will be fooled by those still. A blind thumb is NOT a decent way to promote a dialer... Also, there are no charges shown before the dialer is installed. In much of Europe such thing is ILLEGAL... I'm pretty sure this mtree-dialer works in the Netherlands for instance though...

Anyway, I click 'back' in an attempt to return to where I came from. Unfortunate I don't go 'back'... instead I go to http://www.mtreexxx.net/cpd/?cat=5&w...s=1+317632+the and get another dialer load. I close the dialer and check the text. 'More Free XXX Movies' linking directly to the dialer, 'Free XXX Movie Archives' linking directly to the dialer, 'Free XXX Image Archives' linking directly to the dialer. The site is titled 'Today's FREE XXX DOWNLOADS'... well... every single link on that site goes direcly to a dialer which is far from FREE... Might even be a nice case for the FTC to check out...

By now I know clicking 'back' doesn't work (ok, to make the story complete I did try more than once, came across more 'free download'-promises that linked straight to the dialer). I close the window...

I get http://www.freepicturepage.com/index.html pop up... It's a TGP, or at least it's supposed to look like that. On top of the site are blind thumbs to downloaddollars.com which start loading a dialer once you click 'em. And then, after the trades, the TGP starts...

If this is how they want to do business, fine, and I must admit that being on SexTracker is a good option for me to show advertisers the kind of traffic we draw. I know it has been good for my business. I know I send a little under 2000 people a day to that page and I have extra text on there to tell people sextracker is a counter. On other sites they're promoted with blind links like the one of top of this header.

I'm considering (as I did before) to no longer allow sextracker on galleries posted on The Hun. Surfers are tricked into installing and running dialers. Dialers are not a problem, as long as it's clear to the consumer what it is and that it's definately NOT free. These tactics are definately a blunt attempt to mislead consumers, which is why I don't want to link to it... Also, the fact that people are trapped and as a bonus a popup to another TGP is shown makes me post this here.

Now, some will be temped to say 'take this up with SexTracker'... I did. More than once. With obviously no result. I will have to take stronger measures. If there are good counters out there that don't have these tricks behind 'em let me know here, and I'll forward people that submit a sextracker counter on a gallery to a page with alternatives. I can not accept this much longer. It goes against pretty much everything The Hun stands for.

I'f you'd ever list me I'd submit galleries without sextracker counters... :Graucho

lol

I'd ban em.. fuck the counters. :2 cents:

Ban them. I already kicked them out.

If people need stats they should install it on their box or get their host to help it.

you just noticed?

Flyin Croc has always been a "shady" operation, imo

You could at least move the fucker to the bottom of the page.

just be glad that you don't get porngraph galleries submitted.

but I agree, there shouldn't be room for shady tactics. they don't do anything else but piss the surfer off and give this industry a worse name than it already has.

Well the hun has been using them for gawd knows since the day I visited his site... Maybe sextracker will straighten it up and fix the problem. :)

yep fuck em Hun

This ain't exactly new. Those moneytree dialers have always been bad news. I remember one of the first times I ever went to the sextracker site, and this was through *webmaster* links off a webmaster resource site, I got popped with one.

Sounds like hell. It is shit like that, which is the reason I turned off flash and active-x a long time ago.

Like you said, it does go against everything the hun stands for. Keep with your ways. That has always seemed to serve you well.

Not only does this shit occur, but for some reason, any page with a sex tracker counter puts a cookie in my system that shows up in my spyware programs. I know the cookies are there to log uniques, etc, but why the fuck is it messing with my registry?

Get rid of these counters people. They are bad news and this company has no ethics. :feels-hot

I seriously doubt that sextracker will go a goddamn thing about this. No matter how influential Hun is and no matter how many other programs have adopted different strategies in order to suit his way, Sextracker will certainly make more money keeping the vicious dialer, than to listen to Hun's request/threat and change it. The amount of total counted pages is far higher than the traffic that Hun provides.

If you're talking about ad-aware, many porn related cookies are flagged in those programs, although they don't mess with your registry whatsoever. It is not possible for a counter to mess with your registry, unless it installs something in the background. Cookies don't modify windoze registries. Don't ask me why spyware programs don't like em.

As far as I know this practice is illegal now, and has been for some time.

Illegal or not, I wouldn't list something like that if I knew or found out about it.

Time to hit the old ban button.

Advertisers know what The Hun is worth with or without sextracker. The question is, how many visitors are you getting every day from your sextracker listing?

Partially agreed. I don't want to brag or anything, but I know WebSiteStory went downhill very quickly when I move from them to SexTracker. Now, obviously there were other reasons as well, but I know that having the big sites on a counter is a big help for a counter to get big. Al4A already left SexTracker ages ago, if more move from there to one other place that new player could take over the way SexTracker did when WebSiteStory went down the drain...

havent used them for a long long time, I will stick with paycounter when I use one but for the most part server stats suit me fine for galleries.

but without them (the sextracker stats), they wouldn't be able to sell their gallery spots (for as much money) ;-)

all about supply and demand, you demand a change and we supply it, at least those of us that submit to you. What I dont understand is if other big sites have left and you know they are pulling bullshit why stick around? I understand traffic comes from there but your the hun for christ sake, my server blows up when you list me so you cant lose that much traffic from switching can you?


The Don

the people from deluxepass are currently working on an invisible counter without the tricks porngraph had. It's now in beta mode (you can apply for joing the beta test if you have over 100,000 uniques daily) and will be launch mid-july.

Good point. If more and more players choose an alternative, it will hurt a counter service on the long run. Especially, since webmasters have the tendency to act upon what other people do, and if you dump them, people might start asking why, get a clue and remove ST as their primary tracker as well. No doubt this move could do major damage.

Personally, I have never fully understood the use of counters. To me, they've been annoyances for the most part, and you don't want your traffic to leak thru to them anyway. Why not use a server-side stats program, and make it public for advertizers to see, if that is your concern? I am sure you could have something custom built in notime.

I'm sure they will make "special Arrangements" just for you

Advertizers know what volumes to expect from Hun's traffic. Well, at least most people do.

[IMG]http://***********/hunowned.gif[/IMG]

:1orglaugh

Maybe we should talk with the bigger TGP's out there and see what we can do about all this!

I'm sure someone is smart enough to create a good counter...

What's this about losing traffic? Patrick won't lose any traffic, his surfers who submit galleries with sextrackers on them will find out pretty damned quick that their galleries are being rejected because of their tracker and they will scramble to find a new tracker that plays by the rules.


A shitload of webmasters will dump their sextracker accounts and move on because of this. That's all. Either sextracker will give a shit and do something about it or they won't. No skin of the Hun's ass though.

Ofcourse this also applies to galleries :2 cents:

I've been using SS stats for years... used porngraph for comparison but then dumped it after the new owners fucked everything up.

We only use internal trackers on our sites..peace of mind and keeps attention away :)

I started using 3rd party counters 'cause advertisers pretty much demanded it. They didn't believe/trust my own stats. And though there are ways to make a counter get higher up in the carts people tend to trust those numbers better than own stats. It is very good advertising for a site like mine to be on there for as long as it did (and still does).

Now that it causes issues, good luck finding an alternative. Out of curiosity, I've always heard that tracker stats are 10-15%, sometimes up to 25% off from the actual visitor count (lower that is), if you don't keep the code up top. What experience have you made? I'm sure you keep perfect track of your own server stats.

www.paycounter.com

www.sexlist.com

I've used these two for years when I feel the need to use one that is. To my knowledge there have been none of these problems like you've experienced with sextracker.

We don't track counts on the server, somehow that number seemed irrelevant 'cause we were the only ones looking at 'em. We do keep close track of bandwidth and CPU usage, 'cause that's a number we need to act on in case of changes. For the visitor counts I rely on the 3rd party counter.

In the beginning we did keep track of both (up untill about 4 years ago) and the number you're talking about seem about right. Especially putting the counter on the bottom changed a lot (lower count the lower the counter is). I assume that changed for the better now almost everybody is on broad band Internet

:thumbsup :thumbsup

dialers that dont take no for an answer are really abusing shit


:mad:

They pay on time, what's shady with it? ARS dialers were even more agressive but you wouldn't call ARS poeple shady because of it.

color me badd-hands of time comes to mind