Affiliates what do you think about FNCash (FleshLight) new decission about their trademark?
 

After making claims in the past that it is ok to use the name "fleshlight" in your url when promoting their affiliate program, they recently have been contacting affiliates and threatening to not pay them unless they transfered ownership of that domain to FleshLight.

One such case played out in this thread: https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1042415 which is now locked.

In the past FNCash has said:
https://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=12860205&postcount=93

So as recent as a couple years ago they were publicly stating it was ok to go register a domain name with fleshlight in it, spend your time and money promoting and seo that domain and when you get to the point where you making good money from it they change their minds. They tell you, I am holding your money and not going to pay you unless you transfer ownership of the domain to us.

What do you think, bullshit or ok to pull this?


IMO, since they gave the ok to do this and then allegedly decided they needed to protect their trademark, a good compromise would have been to have the domain ownership transfered to FNCash, however allow the affiliate to leave the site as is with his referral links on it so he could still get credit for the sales and not lose all of his hard work and time.


Affiliates discuss....

it sucks

FNbullshit!

Total BS

thread closed.

They're to hell for it ...

If what you say is truth than its big pile of BS!

jews suck

I posted in the thread that got closed but they strong armed that domain away by holding his money hostage. They had no legal grounds to take it, he could have sued and won easily. I'm assuming he's not from the USA or didn't want to fight but it's these small battles that webmasters should have been waging all along. Now with the industry crumbling nobody is really going to give a fuck what you do to them.

BS.

What's next? FNCash holding your payment hostage because you linked to them from http://fleshlight.yourdomain.com or http://ads.yourdomain.com/admanager....gin=fleshlight or http://sextoys.yourdomain.com/men/fleshlight.htm?

Would never promote them!

22 people voted that it is Bullshit, 0 that it is ok. Don't think I have ever seen such clear results on a poll here before.

Fuck You FleshLight. Give the guy back his domain and keep paying him on those sales!!

I don't know how anyone can be an actual affiliate and think it is anything other than BS.

26 votes of then fucking the affiliate.
0 votes for them being right.

Maybe they will wake up soon. Probably not.

I am just blind or was the thread deleted?

Need to know for my sig. I have screen shots of the first 3 1/2 pages so I will just put them up and link to that if needed.

Locked: https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1042415

Total fucking bullshit and getting threads closed just makes them look that much worse.

32 - 0 .....

Whoever made that decision at Fl*shlight was a corporate idiot. The game is changing in porn. Companies make no bones about fucking you over and doing it in public doesn't mean a thing to them. Fl*shlight is just sitting around waiting for this to blow over because they know how short everyone's memory is.

At the first whiff of a fucking, I pull links, close the affiliate account and worry about it later. Life is too short to take a fucking even if they give you a kiss. Enough affiliate cancelations and it will begin to hurt.

I wrote the TengaFlip company yesterday and got a reply that they are currently in the process of creating an affiliate program so there are always alternatives.

Looks like one of their reps voted :)

I had never heard of them before the now-locked thread, but I looked it up, and it has great reviews on Amazon.

I was disappointed to see Sarah in the other thread taking up for the absurd shit but I guess when you need a job you can compromise principles.

Other affiliate programs have similar policies including Vivid, and Playboy. Buy a Playboy owned trademark domain name and watch how fast they sue your ass.

Vivid sent out letters like two years ago stating the same thing - our trademark, don't use it.

In the what it comes down to is, these companies HAVE to take every effort to protect their trademark or they have a worthless mark. Whoever doesn't understand that then clearly needs a few lessons in business.

that sucks... however, decisions and terms change all the time so it's best not to use any that is trademarked or you're left with something like this :2 cents:

Based off of their responses in the original thread I've already moved on to another sex toy company. It was a clear money grab, and I will not support a company that is out to fuck their affiliates.

They might, and you can say whatever you want but you are fucking wrong. The same law that allows you to talk shit about a company (playboysucksdick.com) allows you to talk good about or at least speak your opinion about that company (playboymagazinereviews.com). This is not the same as playboyfucking.com or similar.

Did you not read where the people at FNCash allowed the trademark to be used for years, then after it gained high serps, they forced him to hand it over?

you totally miss the point / problem here. If FleshLight would have been "protecting" their trademark from day one and this was their policy then that would be a whole nother situation.

In this case they flat out told their affiliates they could use "fleshlight" in their domains to promote them, now they change their mind hold your money and demand that you transfer the ownership of those domains over to them. Thus causing you to lose a lot of money in affiliate sales, which you worked hard to build up, which they said was OK TO DO.

huge difference to a company who never said it was ok and had always been policing their trade mark, not allowing even affiliates to use it.

Is will really an affiliate for anything other than clickcash? Why get in everyones biz...

TOS change all the time, most cases it is nothing we have control over anyways. For example, changing how long the cookie expires, or not paying for "life time" any more, not paying for sales that went through a second or third processor, etc. etc. etc.

If the company wants to fuck you they will easily find a way. In this case it was "trade mark", next it will be something else. Either you promote a stand up company that doesn't pull any of this shit or you promote one that is going to get you one way or the other sooner or later.

short answer, just to piss you off.



( P.S. i don't even make money with clickcash. I just troll GFY for a living.)

Let's turn it around shall we. What are YOU doing replying? Why get in everyone's biz?

My sig says it all.

Total bullshit, and it's pretty sad they haven't made a public apology for how they've conducted themselves. :disgust

Here is the bottom line.

• Affiliate was given permission to create site using trademarked term.
  
• Affiliate used the site to specifically promote their program.
  
• Affiliate spent years to effectively promote their program using said site.
  
• Affiliate generated over $100k in sales over the years.
  
• Program owner got greedy threatened affiliate, held payment and then demanded affiliate to turnover domain to them immediately.
  

Frankly, they should be fucking embarrassed. I can't think of a worse way to treat your hard working, honest affiliates.

Thanks! I am mobile right now and only did a scan for three pages and couldn't see it.

As long as the thread still exists, I am happy. I don't think threads like that should be locked but I don't own GFY.

I guess they asked for it to be locked as besides their reps it looked like only one or two people felt they were in the right.

Since they haven't reconsidered and the issue made it all the way to the owner we now know how they feel about affiliates that sent tons of sales ... imagine how they feel about the ones that only send a few.

I couldn't agree with you more.
It's up to the affiliate to take action and/or talk with the program owner(s) for a compromise if they're even willing to do so.
If an affiliate sees it as "fucking me over", then I advise him/her to pull their links, otherwise, swallow their pride and surrender to their new TOS. :2 cents:

After what they did, I wouldn't trust them anymore if I was sending them sales.

This reply makes me :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Fleshlight wasn't concerned about protecting their trademark in the prior years that they gave him permission to use it. Whoever doesn't understand that needs a few lessons in what it is like to be an affiliate.

Voted bullshit.

to be honest it buged me when they switched there payment sysatem, and i had to add a lot of new links.

i wonder how much lost sales i got.

anyway i am sure they will change there mind as it seems rather silly.

to be honest i do not understand at day one they did not say not to use the name in your domain name.

i suspect that most sales come from search results and they want only there domain name to apear, which i can understand.

but they were foolish to alow this from the start.

the logical thing to do is at very least give 6 months of yours earnings in payment for your domain name.