Zango in XBiz: they agreed to install our software
 

Xbiz has an interesting article concerning Zango. It seems that they contacted Xbiz to "correct" some of the misunderstanding here, and to plead total innocense. It is an impressive piece of double talk, read closely:

http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=17751

I'll start at the end, it's easier to explain:

What Zango fails to mention here is that their window pops AFTER the other window is open. If the same site is opened in the popup, many programs will reset the saved cookie to the affiliate code in the new window. I understand that this isn't Zango SPECIFIC goal in opening window, but it is an unintended and very profitable side effect of their actions. Because of the way some programs work, closing the popup and continuing in the original browser will invoke the cookie from the popup window when it comes time to sign up, because it is the newest cookie for that site. That creates value for the popup buyer, and eliminates the original webmaster from the transaction.

I accept that may not have been Zango's intention, but their method creates exactly this sort of situation in cases where the same site gets popped over itself.

Not so, according to this test:

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/180-affiliates/

This is where Zango admits to using Asterixware - you want X, we will give you X for free, all you have to do to watch that 30 second video is give us control of your computer for extended periods of time, the right to track your surfing, and the right to popup ads long after you have stopped enjoying that 30 second video. Asterixware is the ultimate bait and switch in my personal opinion, because giving away free videos wasn't the intention of the business, but rather the misleading freebie that hooks the unsuspecting fish.

This is where their logic really starts to show. I have had ICQ on my computer for, what, 10 years I guess. It is a useful tool that I intentionally downloaded. There are many millions of people in the same boat. My install time is, well, 3000+ days, I am sure.

Zango with 20 million and 200,000 new a day is looking at a hold time of about 100 days. If a tool is that useful, why would people be deleting it? It would seem to me that a useful service would retain customers and grow, and not be a victim of such violent churn (1% per day... 100% turnover 3.65 times per year).

I think that Zango officials are kidding themselves here. If they offered their product (FREE POPUP ADS ON EVERY OTHER WEBSITE!) they would get few takers. In fact, most experienced surfers have some form of popup blocker or disabler on our systems. Without tying the install to permission to view a video or play a game, they would not have a business to speak of. I would suspect that a survey of people who had Zango on their system would reveal something other than users that felt they had given knowledable consent to what effects that watching that video would have. I base that opinion on surfing google, where I have not found anyone saying how great Zango's popups are.

At the end of the day, Zango has trotted out it's standard legalese excuse list of why it's product is currently legal, and it contains more visible holes that quality swiss cheese.

Thanks for posting this, Alex. You beat me to the punch.

Thanks Steve... I think it is important to seperate out Zango's quick two stepping from the reports and end user comments that are readily available on the web, as well as the somewhat misleading or enthusiastic characterizations of the product from the Zango people.

No problem. I have to impartially present both cases, as you all know, so I tried to present Zango's official statements along with valid webmaster concerns. I hope I framed the issue in the proper way. Despite my own personal feelings, I'm not allowed interject them into the article.

Zango is scum.

that's what blogs are for

LOL


Fight the babbling log!

i've noticed theres alot of hate for zango here, this explains a fair bit to the newbies

Steve, you did well to give Zango a chance to pretty much recite their standard excuse list, which I attempted to poke some large scale holes in. Their answers are pat, practiced, and clearly very well coached. I suspect they know that they are right up against the edge of legal (and moral) acceptability, so they have to answer the questions in the same way with the same phrasing and even the same wording to assure that they do not deviate off of the little sandbar in the legal sea called "no case law yet".

I admine them for having the guts to sit out there. I don't admire at all the companies greedy enough to pay them for traffic.

damn cencorship in porn media

I don't accept it, their intention is highlighted within the link you posted.

Silent affiliate code replacement without the use of popup windows.

Quickdraw, read it very, very carefully, ZANGO DOES NOT OVERWRITE COOKIES BY ITSELF. They render windows, and the content of those windows MAY in the normal course of web usage cause a cookie to change because of a failure in the affiiate programs to properly track individual users and browser windows.

Without that failing in the affiliate systems, no window popped (iframe or other) would have any effect on the current screen cookie.

I understand that Alex, but if it was not intentional, they would not have that iframe appear off screen. At least that is how I read it.

Perhaps they didn't do it, perhaps the person buying the click did it (this is their standard excuse, BTW, for almost everything). They sell the popup space, they do not control the popup nor do they directly profit from the content of the popup (again, statements to that effect have been put forward by Zango). They profit from the popup occuring only (as they explained it).

What censorship?

Yeah, supposedly they only get payed for the popups and toolbar clicks. Their business plan morphs every time they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.
Those hidden windows were a early part of their history, they -may- not do that now, but their original intent and their devious behavior is still shining through.
Another partial quote from Ben's page
http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/180-affiliates/
If they were such good honest businessmen, I don't see why they need to do these things.

More Zango Bullshit. Why hasnt this company had its corporate offices blown up yet?

But what do you call this?

http://bknoob.googlepages.com/myspaceviewershot.png

Isn't this deceptive?

Total and complete BS ..anybody that reads what they said can see what liars and spin doctors they are...

Zango and the people who support and help spread them, are shit.

"Because of the way some programs work, closing the popup and continuing in the original browser will invoke the cookie from the popup window when it comes time to sign up, because it is the newest cookie for that site. That creates value for the popup buyer, and eliminates the original webmaster from the transaction."

-raw alex



and therein lies the issue. shit aint right.

You may want to see this. Although this concentrates on mainstream, don't fool yourself about the possibilities in porn and other adult avenues. I'll be waiting to see more on that as well.

http://affiliatefairplay.com/newsblo...alert/#more-34

Missie

Xbiz you forgot to write that Lars was forced.

FREE LEGENDARY LARS!!!

ditto :)

It probably wouldn't hurt to remember that Zango's comments are likely not intended to convince anyone of anything: they are after all not stupid people and are well aware how unlikely it is that any of XBiz' readership will pay the slightest attention to their spin.

It is far more likely that their house counsel advised them to place such a piece so as not to leave the original perspective unchallenged.

jayeff, agreed, but based on churn alone, Zango stuck their foot in it by admitting that their customer retention levels are so low that they lose their customer base more than three and a half times every year. They burn through 73 million users a year, according to their numbers, but have an install base of only 20 million.

That by itself is the clearest indication to me that the public isn't "informed", nor is the Zango product net beneficial to those users.

They would go away if webmasters weren't so quick to cut corners.. shortsighted webmasters in THIS industry, take a few pennies to install viscous software on surfers pooters.

"cause I make $50 a day with them and can't get the surfers to buy anything else."

I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure what your point is. It would also be useful to distinguish between "customers" as in people installing their scumware and the trash who do business with them to divert surfers away from their intended destinations.

Steve will confirm if he wishes that XBiz asked me if I had any questions for Zango. I didn't because frankly they are not the problem: just a symptom of it. I replied to him something along the lines that yesterday it was someone else and tomorrow it will be someone else again. That will not change so long as we tolerate sponsors who have no compunction in working even against the interests of their own affiliates. It will not change so long as webmasters who work against the long-term interest of the whole industry are not shunned by everyone else.

I don't approve of Zango by any means, but they only provide a tool. Without the scum who promote that tool and thieves willing to use it, Zango would not exist.

What's interesting is that right in the code that determines if they should be poping something up, they could add a couple more lines of code IN THEIR SLEEP to not pop the same domain site if it's open.

Since it's so easy a 1st year computer programmer could do it, it's clear why they don't and also clear that all the programs pushing it and "in error" targeting their own sites are clearly out to screw their affiliates.

Jayeff,if nobody was buying the clicks, I am sure that Zango itself would find ways to derive income, potentially by joining affiliate programs. There are some indications that this has happened in the past, and may be ongoing.

That they resell the displays rather than displaying themselves is immaterial. Their entire basis of business is a willing and informed choice by a consumer to install their software, which is a concept that I debate. Further, with the number of indications that Zango may be difficult to totally remove from a system, why would they feel the need to reinstall themselves automatically after a removal is attempted?

Again, indications that the root of their business isn't anywhere near as snow white as they try to claim.

As for companies like AFF/ Cams and Sexsearch, well... you can imagine my opinion.

Alex

im a little concerned that xbiz gave them a platform to spew that filth... they should have stipulated they werent going to print bullcrap

or added things to the article to clarify.. like when they said "zango doesnt overwrite cookies" xbiz should have said . " even though there is documented video of zango facilitating the practise of cookie theft " and "we installed hthe software and found this to be a lie "
when they said it doesnt interfere with surfing they should have added " even though we couldnt find one satisfied zango user , only tons and tons and tons of reports of disatisfied users"

Zango....

Nice post, glad you explained the holes in their double talk. I hate seeing Zango getting all this publicity, even if its partially negative, but I guess thats part of the price of trying to expose them to the webmaster community.

Yeap and I didn't kill the person, I just pulled the trigger and the bullet killed the person. *Most* people are smart enough to look past the semantics of the words and understand the true meaning of what is happening.

bingo, that wasn't for us, it was for the people who haven't following this close that will now say " ah i knew there was two sides to every story". :Oh crap

Steve, If you guys are interested I would love to comment on this and do an interview for you guys from the perspective of an advertiser. We have heard about this issue from xbiz inregards to AFF trying to justify doing it (sponsors perspective) now we are hearing about it from you guys from the company who is causing it to happen, will we hear anything from the advertisers who it is happening to???
Only seems logical if you want to give it balanced coverage.

Zango steals sales. If affiliates could actually somehow see the percentage of sales being stolen, they'd be furious. But instead, their overall ratios fluctuate slightly and they dismiss it as a slow, maybe even normal period.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Will, I agree with you, but from a purely technical and legal standpoint, Zango is attempting to say they are only selling guns and bullets and teaching people to aim, but not actually pulling the trigger. It is a significant difference, at least from a legal standpoint - and it appears that Zango is staking their entire business on the legal difference between the two.

In the same manner that GFY didn't take advertising or a skin from Guba, it would be nice to see GFY step away from accepting ad money from Sexsearch and maybe even AFF until they are clearer on things like scumware and asterixware.

I spoke to steve, xbiz is going to work something out to give me a platform to speak from.

Thanks Steve, for letting the people who are affected the most by this be heard.

This is a little different. Guns have legit, legal purposes. If guns were only used for armed robbery and illegal activites then yes the gun makers should be held liabel for providing the means for people to do this. They would be facilitating it.

Their software (while it may not be illegal yet) has no legitimate purpose. They take traffic from someone else in 99.9999% of the time. They make their money from their "advertisers" buying the stolen traffic. The more their advertisers make the more they can make from the traffic. They allow their advertisers to bid on their own search terms, they know this is happening and is a problem but they will continue to deny it because it makes them more money by allowing it. Not only from a shaving point, but look at the bid war beteen sex search and aff. If Aff couldn't buy their own keywords i bet those keywords would be selling for a lot less. But since they let companies by their own keywords look at how much more they can make off of them by pitting companies against each other.

Unfortunetly it is more popular for them to blame it on the time of year or the weather as the cause of their sales being down instead of them realizing it could be shit like this that is slowly cutting into their profit.

The last time I complained about severe drop in conversions, zango was involved. Zango affiliate was kicked out, sales magically came back. Again this month, conversions are much worse than they were back then. With all the scumware applications mentioned in these threads, I'm sure scumbags found other avenues to steal sales. Zango is only a needle in a hay stack. Just so happens to be the program du jour because most people have heard of 180solutions, so zango is fairly well known, as most of the other scumware programs are unknown by the majority.

Missie

Hey what are some of the other spyware companies that target adult as well?

Missie, I think that Zango happens to have the numbers in their favor. How they have set their systems up and their traffic flows means they are able to maintain a fairly high number of active installs, even with the overwhelming churn and 365% customer loss per year.

Basically, with 20 million people "enjoying" their software, they can make a pretty big dent in sales, especially if they are hitting majoritly into the english marketplaces, which is where most of us are trying to sell.

What other major toolbar players are hitting adult?

Alex, I love when you get worked up!!

Keep up the good fight.

That's exactly my point Alex. Zango doesn't always get installed on its own. Many times it's bundled with other scumware downloads of which the first illegal install is a totally different application, zango is just included in the bundle along with many others. When these shady companies pay per install, many scumbag webmasters will combine several of them in the same download so they make quite a bit more that way. So rather than making just $0.40 with zango, they could be earning $x.xx or even $xx.xx per install.

Zango probably is the most known scumware program in both adult and mainstream. 180Solutions has been in the spotlight many times over the years, not many have never heard of them or never got hit with one of their scumware applications (n/case or 180SearchAssistant).

Pretty much the only ways to have heard of some of the others is 1) if you got hit with it, 2) if you follow spyware talks, 3) If you happened to have read about it in some forum, or 4) someone told you about it

I'm not going to post any more names of scumware programs. Too many idiots here are already proud of infecting computers with zango and brag about it (someone shoot them!!!) so I'm not going to give them any ideas or where/how to get more of these applications.

Missie

I only get worked up about the good stuff now... for the rest, there is spamarrest and late night TV :)

Alex

Sorry, I can't resist... this is from the ad-tech or whatever show website, a nice description of what Zango does...

I like the "time-shifted ad delivery by engaging more than 20 million consumers precisely when they are most likely to make a purchasing decision" - in other words, we will jump in just as a consumer heads towards a pay or purchase website and either offer another alternative (covering most of the screen) or the same site with a different tracking code or with the code disabled to retain highest possible earnings.

It is so funny to read the flowers and sunshine way they describe their asterixware.

zango zango zango.

Kellie and Ben should set up a booth right across from them and show videos of their own. :D

Missie