Jon

Back in April there was a class action lawsuit that was filed with the Federal Court of California between affiliates and merchants against ValueClick aka Commission Junction on their unfare business practices in which they knowingly allowed and used Adware/Spyware to promote their merchants' products and services, which also bypassed affiliate cookies/codes. Apparently this is not a rumor but has been proven many times over the years, and just until April 2007 something was done about it. I'm still a bit unsure at the moment whether or not CJ has ceased this practice, which I kinda doubt, but I truly hope that there are more merchants and affiliates that come out and join this group that is suing ValueClick and CJ over their evil business practices, because they are the leaders in an industry, but they are also one of the largest culprits of bad business. I reeeeeeeeeally reeeeeally hope that CJ gets shut down or broken apart because of this and the other reeeeally shady and fucked up stuff they do in their day to day business as usual operations.

Yes, I have a personal disgust and strong dislike for CJ and ValueClick that came with personal experiences, and even though that happened 2 years ago now, I will never shut my mouth about it, nor will I ever rest until someone does something to stop these fuckers. ValueClick and CJ are on WickedFire's blacklist (affiliate programs/networks, merchants, or other shady and scammy people and businesses that are put onto a list to warn others to NEVER do business with them again to save yourself a lot of unforseen trouble ahead) I've spoken with other affiliates and former employees and clients of theirs that have shown light to all sorts of reeeeeally fucked up practices on both the client side and operations side of CJ and their "amazing support" and "optimized revenue generating" techniques aka SCAMMING AFFILIATES AND MERCHANTS for YEARS!!

Anyhow, I just wanted to know if anyone heard anything about the class action lawsuit that was filed in April 2007, and if anything was being done to make it go quicker, or if there was a settlement made yet?

You can bet your ass that CJ is the last one that will want news of this to be coming out again, so spread the word and if you're a victim of their bad practices you may want to look at the complaints and site setup for the lawsuits.

Here is what the site states (they also have some great links):

THE LAWSUITS
On April 20, 2007, two putative class action lawsuits were filed in Federal Court for the Central District of California. The lawsuits, filed on behalf of affiliates and merchants, allege that defendants ValueClick, Inc., Commission Junction, Inc. and Be Free (collectively, “ValueClick”) have engaged in unfair business practices resulting in harm to affiliates and merchants on their affiliate networks. According to the complaints, ValueClick has failed to take reasonable steps to address malicious adware and adware users on its networks. The following are a few examples identified in the complaints of how adware may result in harm to ValueClick’s affiliates and merchants:

1. by unlawfully diverting earned commissions from legitimate affiliates;
2. by fraudulently causing merchants to pay commissions and fees for traffic that was not generated by legitimate affiliate activity;
3. by threatening the integrity of merchant affiliate programs; and
4. by exposing merchants to liability for breach of their contracts with affiliates

(source: Nassiri & Jung LLP Class Action)

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Bofu2U

Awwww shit. :o

(yay)

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StarkReality

Happy to NOT have an account with them...not like there are any programs I really trust 100%, but that's REALLY bad.

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Grafix

Thanks for the info. I hadn't heard about any of this til now.

Fewleftstanding

Where's the link to the blacklist?