[scott33]

I read the post about zango, and how dishonest affiliates where using it to steal commissions, and I wanted to shed some light on this for a minute, there are some good points made in that post so props to the guy who posted it, but would you all consider PPV in general suspicious activity? from companies such as directCPV and trafficvance?

those companies don't involve there self with parasite adware (which is adware that people didn't opt in for), the adware from like gamevance people have opted in for it, would you still consider that suspicious? I know of a top affiliate right now who is promoting the PPV playbook forum (jonathan volk), and I don't think he would promote anything that's considered "suspicious"..

this adware from the legit companies are not spyware, and can easily be removed when they uninstall the toolbar/software, trafficvance is a organized PPV company, as the deposit is 1000 dollars, and you need a referral from someone in the program, so trafficvance attracts the honest affiliates that won't steal your commissions in the end.

The stories of dishonest affiliates might be true, but theres dishonest affiliates in PPC and social media, so why are people bringing heat down on PPV just because there is dishonest affiliates?

I do however see a problem in the adware, if the user didn't opt in for it, but most of these companies deal with adware that people opted in for (even tho they probably didn't know it), due to long terms, but they should of read the terms before signing up IMO. I do think they should make it very clear that adware is being used, instead of burying it in a long TOS.

I would like to quote something thats right up at the top when you join game vance

You will see ads when you are online generally. On average we will display four ads per day.

Ads to be served on Gamevance: Gamevance serves banner, textlink and pop-up ads based on key words searched and the URLs you visit. You can uninstall Gamevance by clicking here.

This is how these companies should go about mentioning adware, instead of putting where no one can see it

[scott33]

i totally posted this in the wrong forum

my bad

[scott33]

I also want to add to this post, that this is not a problem on major affiliate programs, make sure when you sign up as an affiliate there are rules to protect you against cookie stopping, the good folks over at ebay has a rule in place where you can't promote affiliate links with PPV traffic, they consider this cookie stopping and the affiliate in question will be terminated, however you can still bid on directories, I know that the honest affiliates don't do anything unethical with PPV, sure there will be the dishonest affiliates but they will get banned once there caught doing anything unethical, amazon and wallmart is probably already on bored with this rule, PPV is a hot topic right now on alot of blogs.

Doing anything unethical is bad business for the full time affiliate if they want there accounts to be in good standings.

[2busy]

Scott, if you want to learn more about this topic, just do a search here. Go to the search box at the top of the page and type in something like "directCPV" and you can read plenty.
The networks have rules against certain types of actions and they all have ways to detect it.

[Gary-AvantLink]

but would you all consider PPV in general suspicious activity?

We do (@AvantLink), and as 2busy stated we have identified traffic patterns that allow us to be 99% certain someone is using PPV networks to drive illegitimate traffic.

Throughout 2009 and into 2010 we've purged quite a few from our network, and considering how thorough we are with Affiliate acceptance criteria...I can't imagine how pervasive it is on larger networks. All these scammers have the same traffic profile, and all use a front site that would make you think (at least at first glance) they there are some kind of SEO, consulting, etc. type of company.

PPV/CPV is a scam on the natural click stream of shoppers, merchants and on legitimate Affiliates...plain and simple.

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

I think you mean cookie dropping or stuffing instead of cookie stopping.

those companies don't involve there self with parasite adware (which is adware that people didn't opt in for),

That isn't what parasite means at all. That is a convenient definition for justifying the software.

Parasite means feeding off of another to the detriment of the other. All of these applications only work by feeding off the content/work of others (the content of other web sites). They interfere with those web sites. That makes them parasitic.

Do you know for certain that these applications aren't spyware? Have you ever installed them to see what information is being transmitted back to the their servers?

Do you know who all these companies are syndicating their ad inventory to? Because they all syndicate except for TrafficVance. Are their syndication partners meeting FTC legal requirements for adware distribution?

Do you know for a fact that all of TrafficVance's installs provide the disclosure you mention? Do you know for a fact that all of TrafficVance's installations meet with FTC adware guidelines?

How much money has to be deposited with a company does not substantiate how legimate they are. That's just silly.

Regardless of those points, I don't evaulate ethical solely on FTC regulations. I may eveluate legal, but not ethical.

For me I find the fundamental business model of these companies unethical. The road some of them are going down may be found illegal in time as well.

I don't care how much others are tooting them on blogs etc at the moment. Most of those guys are benefiting financially in some way themselves...what else would they say?

so why are people bringing heat down on PPV just because there is dishonest affiliates?

Maybe because even if they aren't cookie stuffing, they are actively targeting sites to draw traffic and sales from. Maybe because some, like TrafficVance, are placing links on their pages for TrafficVance's own finacial reward without permission from the owner of the site and they don't like their sites being messed with. Maybe because these companies are indeed parasitic. Maybe because the response rate is so low for these types of ads (even the guys over at AffPortal and PPVPlaybook call it interference marketing, acknowledging consuemr negative response to the ads) that it doesn't take long for many to figure out that cookie dropping and/or supertargeting (displaying an ad for the merchant the end user is already visiting) is the only way to really make any money from this type of marketing.

[scott33]

trafficvance uses the gamevance toolbar, and it says right up the top that you will get 4 pop ups per day, I am very fimilar with the zango toolbar because my AV will eat it up, gave vance is a very popular toolbar and thats what traffic vance uses, I wasn't sure if you all was saying that the zango toolbar was suspicious activity or the entire PPV industry was suspicious activity

cookie dropping, has been refereed to as cookie stopping, cookie stuffing, ect

i have a programming background and thats what we call it when someone hi jacks cookies

they are opting in for this stuff, maybe the unethical toolbars don't clearly disclose that there is adware, but the good ones like gamevance clearly disclose it, PPV is not suspicious activity if used by the ethical affiliate, its like PPC in ways because you have your unethical affiliates with PPC, adware is thought to be spyware when its not, adware can be removed when you uninstall a program, spyware cannot be removed that easily.

people are actually opting in for this adware, sometimes without knowing it, but most of the time its clearly disclosed like gamevance does

your only going to see this industry blow up, because networks are trying to get the super affiliates in.

the adware from these companies is totally different from the ones mentioned here, i guess adware kind of has a bad name, but sometimes people opt in for it when they get free software like gamevance

people download this toolbar, and are willing to download the adware that comes along with it as it can be removed once you uninstall the program

spyware is not so easy to remove

we had spyware on this computer for over a year that keeps coming back, even the most sophisticated AV can't kill it

if people download with the knowledge of there being adware installed with the program I don't really see the problem

Yea like you said, there is bad people in PPV, but there is bad people in PPC, social networking, SEO, ect

I can honestly tell you that if the good networks spot these bad people, they will be banned on the spot and there earnings will be taken away, I look for some networks to make it impossible to bid on files, like shoppingcart.asp, or buynow.php

PPV people don't bid on keywords, they bid on URLS.

[scott33]

http://www.quantcast.com/gamevance.com

heres the traffic breakdown for gamevance.com

most of these people are well aware of adware, due to how the mention of it is disclosed clearly