Using Fake Review Sites? Like $250k Fines?
- Thread starter mont7071
- Start date
I'm not a US resident but the Trade Practices Act here (in Australia) would also regard false declarations as to profit potential or actual profit making, as misleading and deceptive conduct. And the comment about auction houses' fake bidders - ebay comes to mind here - is a similarly illegal thing.
It's fine to make outlandish statements like 'this is the best scheme ever', or 'the best scheme in internet marketing' etc. That's referred to as 'puffery' and whilst attempting to persuade potential buyers or clients, it's fairly obvious to the average person that they're subjective statements and not statements of fact.
It's fine to make outlandish statements like 'this is the best scheme ever', or 'the best scheme in internet marketing' etc. That's referred to as 'puffery' and whilst attempting to persuade potential buyers or clients, it's fairly obvious to the average person that they're subjective statements and not statements of fact.
What scares me is regulators seem to be moving towards an era of "strict liability" on the part of advertisers that utilize affiliates. In Legacy, they provided an example disclaimer that the affiliates were supposed to use on the sites. The affiliates chose to either completely ignore them, or smooshed them somewhere towards the bottom. FTC said that Legacy is still on the hook.
What's worse? Legacy has to monitor its top 50 revenue producing affiliates each month as well as 50 random ones. I wonder if someone at the FTC is secretly creating their own networkz, get paid $10 cpa for every person you call out...holla! But in all seriousness, that's going to be a pain in the ass to babysit 100 affiliates each month. I'd also think that some of those "top producing" ones wouldn't want to have every move monitored and then subject to review by the FTC.
What's worse? Legacy has to monitor its top 50 revenue producing affiliates each month as well as 50 random ones. I wonder if someone at the FTC is secretly creating their own networkz, get paid $10 cpa for every person you call out...holla! But in all seriousness, that's going to be a pain in the ass to babysit 100 affiliates each month. I'd also think that some of those "top producing" ones wouldn't want to have every move monitored and then subject to review by the FTC.
That's what happens when big-government liberals are in charge. They just want a cut of the action. It's basically taxation through "regulation".
You know, most people will laugh and pass this comment by. But it's 100% true.
I won't get into the politics of it. The FTC's reach has expanded under both Republicans and Democrats.
You'll notice however that the FTC always sues for a minimal percent of revenues compared to some of the SEC claims that go for everything made and bankrupt companies. The FTC will normally in our side of the industry go after 2-10% at the very most. The want to actually get paid, not go into long legal battles.
It's especially interesting looking at claims against affiliates. The FTC or Attorney General of their respective states have subpoenaed every major network out there. They know, roughly, how much affiliates have made and it's always amazing to look at the precise claims they raise and what their settled at.
Whenever someone tells me they settled I can almost always ballpark the number within a few grand if they tell me their revenues.
Most people, including myself, started off with a hate of the FTC and tried to avoid them. But big advertisers now work quite closely with them, making minimal if any, changes to their offers and creating almost a side fund for when they get a claim from the FTC and just paying out. It's created quite a monopoly for a select few companies because the FTC, I believe unintentionally, has raised the bar for more legitimate offers or any type of advertiser using negative forced continuity.
I've said it for years and only now is the industry really starting to divide, and it's the FTC that is really forcing it. 95% of affiliates won't be making their living off the internet in 5 years and 5% of us will control the previous 100% of the money.
Already most of the offers that are stable and profitable are private (on networks or otherwise) with just a few guys promoting it. Instead of having 1,000 affiliates doing 200k in sales a day twenty or thirty guys are doing that volume.
Happens in most industries and this industry is no different.
There is nothing wrong with this, because those other 1000 affiliates fuck it up for the 20-50 guys that are doing legit.
I hate when I'm doing well on a offer and the network whores it out to everyone. The advertiser complains offer goes away
I agree. I didn't say there was anything wrong with that, or anything else I mentioned.
The FTCs stance does nothing but hurt my competition and help myself. Everyone dabbling in re-bills gets out and it allows for loosely connected groups of people to better monopolize inventory and increase profits. It's a great thing for my bottom line.
Just out of curiosity, what are you saying here? Are you suggesting that 95% of affiliates that make money now are doing so only by promoting "shady" offers that won't be available for them to promote in 5 years?
Economies of scale, and he's 100% right. If you make your living through arbitraging public traffic to public offers - Good Luck Bros.
Hmm not sure I can agree 100% with that. I can always take public traffic, add value, and then send it to a public offer and profit. That will never change. But in terms of people who just jump on acai berry or google money waves and make "easy money" without really doing much of anything, ya I agree those opportunities will go away.
It's the difference between running a money-making scheme and a proper sustainable business.
A lot of people who I see making a living online right now, although they may be very profitable, are in a total mess business-wise.
They've found a way to convert traffic a to offer b via landing page c, and repeated that several times, but when it comes to things like risk management, business model, and getting the right people to work with they're not even off the starting blocks.
You've only gotta see the number of threads along the lines of "I sent 100% of my traffic to network X, effectively giving them a $50k credit line with no checks, and now they aren't paying" to know that.
You're totally right that this happens in every industry - Back in 2000 you could make a fortune as a web developer if you could write a single line of HTML. I remember a client I worked with paying their developer $1MM for a site that was really worth all of $50K. The small web dev company could have lived off that for 5 years if they needed to. I don't think they were even in business 3 years later.