Jon

Copeac ie. INTERMARK MEDIA has been nailed by the FTC on Wed April 13th 2011.

Here:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/04/14/FakeNews.pdf

Will post the official FTC link shortly.

Rumors are flying now that the FTC is also filing to go after the affiliates/publishers that some folks claim Copeac has offered in an effort to offset the suit filed against them, but were denied? I dunno, I hope that's not true, but what the FTC wants, the FTC gets. So we'll see...

I guess putting yourself up on that Brand Protection board wasn't such a smart idea after all, eh? :/

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kingofsp

inb4 lots of people

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Gonzo

Daaaamn son. Holy shit.


snitchin' huh?

cryptix

Ahhhh - Sighhhh - Eeeeeeeeeeee

damn that berry is a bitch

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FUTURE SIGNATURE PARKING PLACE:
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Spliffic

inb4 flysarescary's internet tough guy rant

iPwnNoobs

is this relevant:

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TFLNetwork

inb4 mike says no big deal and not to worry.

jeffrey

this.

Jon

inb4 all of you get banned for a day for being idiots..

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johnjassa

Why them and not some of the networks?

Copeac should be ok. This is all part of business.

mattaw

A question here, is why acai, why not biz opp, penny auction, teeth, wrinkle or any of the other major niches. The FTC seems quite focused on diet first. I wonder if this is just the beginning and they`re going niche by niche or is this just a nice warning, of hey clean your shit up, before they start to fuck everyone else royally....

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penguinbc

It's pretty much whatever is getting the most complaints or whatever the FTC decides they want to go after next. This isn't the beginning, they have been doing this for years. They put out guidelines and rules, nobody takes notice, they hit some big cases then it gets quiet again and they start over.

Jon

Why not tell the teacher she forgot to give the class homework...

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johnjassa

Praying for Mike and all the Copeac sweeties

ItsYoBuddy

lol

inb4 picture with george bush

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Gotta go to court tomorrow. FTC on my dick so imma wear my audemar

mattaw

I can't give legal advice, and am not a lawyer /end disclaimer/

I'm just repeating what my lawyer said today, when we talked about all of this. To be honest, the message I got from him is this is becoming a more prevalent issue for the FTC right now. You're probably right in the fact that it'll set and example and quiet down, but how many examples. What stood out to him/me is that a few of the pubs named so far, are not HUGE pubs, they're mid level "average" publishers. Usually in the past when they set an example they go for the biggest guys to set a standard for the whole industry. I may be completely wrong, but that's just my take semi-informed take.

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WhatRunsWhere.com - Find out what everyone is running, how they're doing it and find out now. Your competition is using it, why aren't you?

penguinbc

Maybe that is exactly the message they want to send. You don't need to be a "HUGE" pub, they will go after anyone. Seems like a more effective way to get your point across that's for sure.

I know I said it in the other thread but I'd like to see them go after the ad agencies like sonar, pulse and the rest that are responsible for 90% of the ads that get shown to consumers. Knocking some people down for this without going after the ad agencies approving these ads is not going to do anything but have other people with the same ads and pages take their place in the rotation. Hit the big ad agencies that approve these and that will cause them to get more serious with their ad approvals, drive bids back down, and we won't be having these problems anymore. The ad agencies are the ones responsible for what ads and pages get shown to consumers, they have ad approval teams already in place, if they start to think that they may get some blame on this they will quickly change their approval process and that's what the industry really needs right now. If the FTC wants those big settlement numbers and to actually make a difference then the ad agencies are a great place to start, not going to get that with these random average affiliate marketers.

TeeBird

Or maybe the FTC is figuring out the best way to prosecute, or settle, these cases by going after the small fish as test cases. Once they have found a template that they know the courts will accept and rule in their favor, they will get the big boys.

Who knows, maybe the FTC read an article on split testing and scaling here on WF...

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Yen!!!

hell yeaaah.. or wait

papajohn56

FTC hasn't posted anything on their website yet about any of these, I wonder if that means anything.

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megatabbers

I think the FTC is way past the point of "testing" and figuring things out thanks to the direct mail industry (and way before the web existed).

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"I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing," said BBDO Chairman Philip Dusenberry. "The first, of course, is ransom notes."

mattaw

Agreed 100%. When you go through adsonar legal, they say this is ok to do, as long as you make X alternations to the page. I'm not a lawyer, but that seems like a liability to me. Great point.

@papajohn: If you read the ftc blogs regularly like I do (I'm cool I know), you'll notice that most of what they post is about cases they WON or initiatives they're going to take with broad strokes (like cyber crime prevention week or whatever event they're having). It's about consumer confidence that the agency is always doing their job and winning all the time. I don't really see them posting about an active case until its closed/definitively swinging their way.

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WhatRunsWhere.com - Find out what everyone is running, how they're doing it and find out now. Your competition is using it, why aren't you?

1nspire

Why does the url say FakeNews.pdf. Me thinks Jon is blowing smoke up your asses.

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thinksmarty

Couldn't believe they would actually respond in public.

lawyer sent me link

Copeac Official Response

papajohn56

Even so, they usually post actions on the daily Actions page, or at least something on the "Cases" page would show up for this, but nothing. They did post a quaint little video about "free trials", though.

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crackp0t

[1]I'm not. I hope they get their ass nailed to the wall and can't recover.



[1] If they actually did turn on their Affiliates. If they try to claim they had no clue what these people were running that's 100% bullshit.

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yevlesh

The case is real - already in the court database:
Federal Trade Commission v. IMM Interactive, Inc. :: Justia Dockets & Filings

papajohn56

Yeah, I just searched there, I'm seeing a total of 6, all filed April 13.

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Jon

Methinks you're an imbecile. The FTC is calling it "Fake News Site" instead of "Farticle". Jackass.

Yeah... they are going after big and small affs, and networks. Not just in one specific location, all over the US. The reason it wasn't on the FTC.gov site yet is because its considered "sealed" still. But that's how things roll on the interwebz. Sealed or not sealed, once you upload it or send it out, we all get copies lickity splits fast y0.

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papajohn56

not sure if serious.

also I think Jon's signature here totally applies and is perfect advice for all of these cases

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Dwight Schrute

Dear Faggots Who Can't Read Between The Lines:

The FTC is reading every single post here. If you'd like to turn them onto more cases to file, keep writing like a bunch of fucking goons, and point them into the direction to sniff into.

That is all.

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"the only classes I did good in where english and business." - BlokBlok

crackp0t

Good point lets out all that shit

I'll start News 9 Investigates Colon Cleansers

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Jon

Dear paranoid retard who thinks the sky is falling..

FTC, plz look moar here:

135 Crossways Park Drive
Woodbury, New York
11797
(check the drop ceilings for random buffer corp structure docs, offshore accounts and access codes, and Playboy mags hiding from other sweeties of Copeac... kthxbai)

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Dresden14

i use to buy debt leads from intermark media; those guys are dicks. Glad to see it.

joevis

That's what you get for peddling shit.

Barclay&Riddell

it's shit like this that further fixates a negative connotation on the entirety of affiliate marketing. whether or not you give a shit how the public views what you do for a living, you can't deny the fact it gets annoying having to dodge, dip, duck and dive away from telling those outside of affiliate marketing what you do all to avoid their likely misconstrued ideas and unneeded opinions about your profession.

the road to riches is undoubtedly lined with a few sheists here and there, but if your business model in its entirety is a sheist, it seems entirely inevitable that something like this will happen eventually.

i don't have much to say about the above, other than the fact i always tend to lol at legalese like that which is bolded. how you go about defining something as concretely indirect or implicative kind of escapes me. but, that's best left for a discussion on semantics.

eliquid

ha, glad I never really worked with them.

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BigWill

Too many people...

King.

Your 'stunning english' is an even bigger mess than this FTC shitstorm. Using big words doesn't make you a master wordsmith or 'cunning linguist' if you're talking gibberish, shithead.

invisible777

^ you consider "connotation" and "misconstrued" big words?

loll.

barman

good thing i've stuck to promoting just Shamwows

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eVandals

you know the germans always make good stuff.

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mattaw

FTC Cracks Down on Fake News Websites Used to Advertise Acai Berry Weight-Loss Pills

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WhatRunsWhere.com - Find out what everyone is running, how they're doing it and find out now. Your competition is using it, why aren't you?

barman

So where's the organization that goes after Wall Street for massive, financial system collapsing fraud that wiped out a huge amounts of wealth and ruined the dollar?

oh wait...

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bluechinagroup

Most FTC cases are settled outside of court. What you said is truly complete nonsense.

Sonny Forelli

fixed that for you

jenzkc

no shit.

AdExhibitJason

lalalalalalala

















































































































































































































































la

tacoX

That's what happens when you own the offers, the processing, and give affiliates landing pages in an effort to recover the losses EWA incurred on them.

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tencentpiece

AKA, EWA still can't run enough traffic for the FTC to even be remotely interested in them.

Don't worry, I am sure you'll get your first lawsuit soon enough.

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