May 18 2007

Valueclick (VCLK) Being Investigated By The FTC For Fraud Web Offers

By Jeremy Schoemaker 29 comments

A while back I exclusively reported about ValueClick’s shady web sites/companies and took some pretty heavy criticism for it. Well today news is breaking the FTC is investigating these offers and while they have now updated all these sites to be compliant a insider tells me the right people have all the “shady versions” of the websites cached.

Seocracy said on May 18th, 2007 at 12:01 pm

It must have been your reporting that tipped them off. I hear the feds are big fans of your work.

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AffiliatePimpin said on May 18th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

What a bunch of clowns…should be interesting how this plays out.

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Sabrina said on May 18th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

Good thing they caught on, like we need more people doing shady business..

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Mubin said on May 18th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

It was probably the person that sent the editorial to shoemoney in the first place that also reported this to the feds.

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Jim said on May 18th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

I would be surprised if anything came of this with VCLK. They are well lawyered up and the FTC would likely allow them to just change what they view as non compliant or maybe just issue a slap on the wrist fine, if anything.

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jim said on May 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

I dunno, they’re all about making examples out of people so they might go full tilt against a web company… make a big stink, then maybe settle it and get the message across.

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SEO Refugee Blog said on May 18th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

Shoe, no wonder you’re always ahead of the game, you can see the future. First the Shoestradamus stuff, and now this. Care to let me in on who will win the World Series this year?

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CPA Affiliates said on May 18th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

I was wondering how soon this would go full blown.

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coopreme said on May 18th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

ya im excited! btw i like your stuff

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Jim said on May 18th, 2007 at 6:02 pm

VCLK stock is back over $30. The market sure is not worried. Its not unusual for promo offer companies to get letters like these. The government and AGs usually start with the low hanging fruit that cant fight back for making examples from what I have seen. I think the FTC will start going after people, but I bet its the idiots that REALLY don’t comply and there are lots of them running reg paths and selling free trial BS.

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Ken Savage said on May 18th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

Cue the Columbo jingle.

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Michael Webster said on May 18th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

This is odd, I just wrote a post on my own site, Misleading Advertising Law, about how scammy I thought this way - only to be scooped by Shoemoney.

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Wealth Junkie said on May 18th, 2007 at 8:38 pm

Do you think the market really understands the full extent of this?

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Don@AffiliateWatcher said on May 18th, 2007 at 9:02 pm

Move over Geraldo, make room for Shoemoney.

Nice dirt uncovered. But we’d like to know your sources….and would you go to jail rather than give them up…lol…remember, you’re not a blogger, your a journalist!

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Travel Notebook said on May 18th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

I doubt anything will come of it. I wish they would get smacked down by the law but its unlikely.

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John Smith said on May 19th, 2007 at 3:00 am

I wander how their customers will see this. What will happen to them?

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The Dino said on May 19th, 2007 at 5:22 am

Customers dont have to worry, big companies knows how to deal with such problems and customers knows that VCLK is big comapany.

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Lee Bandoni said on May 20th, 2007 at 4:37 am

This will lead to big changes in the whole market

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Brian Mark said on May 20th, 2007 at 10:13 am

I’d so love to be on a jury for something like this… but it probably won’t make it to trial. My wife laughs every time I mention being on a jury… because my normal reaction for anything is “Hang ‘em”. Not exactly unbiased.

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Link Snitch said on May 20th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

I dropped them a long time ago because of their shady practices after they bought WebSponsors.com.

I hope they get theirs.

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Buxr said on May 20th, 2007 at 3:53 pm

My prediction is nothing will happen. It’s just more publicity, and all publicity is good!

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Pogung177 said on May 20th, 2007 at 6:16 pm

Where is new from the same case for Azoogle… Shoe…?

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fivecentnickel.com said on May 21st, 2007 at 6:55 am

Shoemoney.com is the default start page on all FBI web browsers.

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fivecentnickel.com said on May 21st, 2007 at 6:57 am

Not sure who it will be, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the Montreal Expos. Or the Washington Senators (and I can guarantee it won’t be the Ottawa Senators).

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fivecentnickel.com said on May 21st, 2007 at 6:57 am

Get used to that feeling…

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ritchie said on May 23rd, 2007 at 3:59 am

I don’t believe in too much outcome as well. This could be a landslide for a lot of online-marketing companies though.

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ritchie said on May 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 am

gotta find the dead bodies first

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Sherry said on January 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Yes, they scammed me with just a telephone number!

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Yahoo Censors Question About Promoting Domain Name Content Monetization said on November 13th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

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