Seems like just yesterday I was talking about how any day now I expected the FTC to start going after all the fake weight loss and grant “blogs”.
Well yesterday they had a press conference announcing investigations. Affiliate marketers will get a kick out of some of the questions and how retarded people like the clickz reporter is who doesn’t know what arbitrage is.
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Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2414 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
I knew it wouldn’t last much longer.
Thank god it didn’t.
Giving affiliate marketers a bad name anyways.
The party always comes to an end.
In the long run this is a good thing for affiliate marketing. And so is Google’s recent crackdown on some of the acai berry ads featuring Oprah and Rachel Ray. I hope they continue to crack down and I hope charges are filed against some of the bigger abusers. I also hope google takes action against websites who run exit chat scripts and some of that other garbage that affiliates are employing.
clean up time…. the party is over…at the end it will be a good thing…it will be ugly before… the good affiliates will still make money and the black hat non ethical are going to feel that hard…
I’m glad i hate these little fads every where you turn on the internet it’s grant offers. I hope this will help but i’m sure we will keep seeing them for months even with a crack down. People are raking in on these offers and i’m sure they won’t give up easily.
Yea, and just like warez and other illegal stuff they will move it offshores.
Clickz couldn’t even ask a coherent questions much her background STOP TYPING on national TV. what a ditz
Hm… Immoral? Yes. Illegal? I don’t think so.
As much as I don’t agree with shady marketing tactics, it kind of bugs me that the government has to look out for the stupid people. Do you REALLY think the government is just going to give someone a $25k check for nothing? I doubt it.
Just bothers me how they refer to the sites as scams when in fact they’re just extremely smart marketers taking advantage of the less intelligent…
First, yes stupid people are stupid for getting in this trap. Getting money from any “.com” sites should set off a “Danger Will Robinson” alert in your mind.
Second, the government does give away free money $25k or more, just look at the bank and car companies bail outs. Those are going to go to waste and everyone under 30 years old will have to pay it off as well as our children and our children’s children.
Just time to find the next top niche
Jeremy – Though the Clickz reporter keep rambling and doesn’t ask a coherent question, she does have the definition of arbitrage correct. Arbitrage does take place within ad networks, when inventory is filled by other ad networks, potentially at multiple levels. Arbitrage is not just PPC->Adsense/CPA/Anything else.
Hahaha, they applaud Facebook!
How about Facebook pay back the millions they made by running the ads. What a crock!
I agree that this is a problem, but the last thing we need is the FTC trying to regulate the internet. This is what will inevitably happen. They will at first, promote their cause as just. For example, they say people are getting scammed, ergo, let the government help fix it. They will then attempt to fix the problem, but will ultimately fail, just as they have with every other past and present attempts to fix something. Once their failed attempts are realized, they will not admit fault, they will instead insist that more government is needed, which means more regulation. In the end, the internet will be controlled, just as the boob tube, newspapers, and radio.
These activities are fraudulent anyway. We have laws against these types of acts. Anybody who is a victim can prosecute the proper party as criminals at any time. The last thing we need is bureaucrats controlling the internet. Believe me, this is detrimental to our 1st amendment rights and our civil liberties.
I don’t think this is the Gov trying to regulate the Internet. It is simply an entity protecting their own service offerings. Let’s say for example that you owned a non-profit that took charitable contributions and you disbursed the funds to wherever your organization saw fit. Would you be OK with people charging money for the same thing you are giving out to try to help people and capitalizing on your charitable efforts? Would you stop it if you could?
Adam, I agree with you 100%. The Federal government grew too big, too bureaucratic and way too willing to protect the “little guy” with the New Deal back in the 1930s. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to E. Carrington, May 27, 1788
I think its time to clean all the mess or… expect the worst black hat evolution.
Thank god for this.
Finally those who scam others in their time of need will be put where they belong: in jail.
Ya your right. Its a great move
It would make things easier if there where less scam artists on the web. But I guess not with the bad economy even more people will try to make a quick $ that way.
I always believe that whatever happens …happens for good….
Shoe is great and long live the legend
End of all…
The ability to engage in coherent speech is in fashion now!
Have you ever heard Obama without a teleprompter? He is a master in incoherent dialect in speech.
About damn time… my $.02
Move the arrow in the middle of the video.
Look at 14:20 in the video.
funny stuff…
Not to mention, if you can’t read what you are agreeing to, buy everything with cash and get off the internet…
It was a only a matter of time before they would go after the weight loss market.
So your expectation and thoughts was right. Nice to see that we got the early hints from your post Jeremy.
I don’t know if I’m more concerned about the scammers or about the “stimulus” plan itself.
That lady from the ftc was absolutely clueless as to what a publisher is. As a matter of fact she had no idea how aff network-advertiser-affililate worked. She gave a non-answer when asked about if the site does display terms and conditions what happens, etc…
Some of you here might be happy they are going after this niche, but trust me if we allow the ftc to run the internet, it will only be a matter of time before they come after your niche.
Good things dont last long dont they. Anyways thanks for the heads up.
I actually dont seem why to regulate, I prefer to keep internet as a unruled land. You just have to learn not ot fall into any scam, investigate before doing anything, thats all it needs.
Well I guess I’m gonna have to do something else. Those were some quick ways to make some cash too.
To the commenters who think this is regulating the the internet, you’re wrong. Most of these violations come under mail fraud. The federal government has traditionally always cracked down on this. You guys just got used to the Bush admin, where they turned the other cheek on all regulation. This is small potatoes. The scams that sunk our economy. That god the feds are finally enforcing the law.
I got so sick of these I started a Free Grant Kit Scams blog about it.
To anyone who boo-hoos about the FTC ‘crackdown’ (right…): I don’t care if you’re making money with these programs, and how much you will not make after the FTC gets
a clueinto gear. If you affiliate these kind of things, you’re an @$$. Period.These people are such a pain in the ass!! Time to bring out the ‘natural treatment’!!!!
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