Idea to defend ourselves in hostile industry

[WCD Admin]

Honestly you're missing my point which is simple: this is a tool not a straight jacket. If it was a straight jacket no one would put it on. "What the thinker - thinks, the prover - proves." We can argue back and forth, or we could work together.

What is the TECHNICAL reason it won't work, not "no one will do it" or "it wont work" -- ??

 

[Vladi]

WCD it is a good idea. Not perfect - but lets face it nothing is. Arkyt is also right in that there is a lot of self interest at play and someone who is depending on a program that goes rogue for a majority of their income is going to be more than a little hesitant to sign up to something that could conceivably blacklist their primary income source.

I also think that relying on people to wrap their links in the appropriate DIVs could be the deal-breaker. I am often amazed to read here and elsewhere that an affiliate has set up 50 sites and is manually inserting links everywhere. Fixing that and centralising links would be a massive job, especially for part time and/or newbie affiliates.

But you know what all these blacklists, and publicity campaigns and boycotts have in common? They work from within this industry for a subset of affiliates who are interested enough to participate in the forums. Dave made a great point - sadly blacklists, while good in principle, have not been an effective tool in forcing the likes of the Virtual Group to either clean up or go out of business. The obvious reason is that there are simply not enough players or affiliates that do their research before they get ripped off.

I think we need to think bigger - outside the square so to speak. We should be attacking the bad guys in a way that we can reach players and/or affiliates who don't read affiliate forums or have the slightest clue about the affiliate industry.

So I have been thinking of ways to attack the problem and this is my first thought. Hands up if you use a virus checker or malware scanner that alerts you to bad sites when you visit them? That is not rhetorical - I use a Mac but I do know that I am in the minority! I assume a lot of windows users do.

Website reputation ratings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

eg:
AVG LinkScanner
McAfee SiteAdvisor
Norton Safe Web
Trend Micro's TrendProtect
WOT Service's WOT: Web of Trust

Many of these services alert users when they surf to an unsafe or untrusted domain, or they inject ratings into google search results pages when the user does a search - so users immediately get an indication of which sites are good and which are bad.

It would not take much effort to have the likes of virtual group and other rogues added to every such database as most accept community submissions. There is plenty of evidence we can link to that shows the scam operations.
eg: coolcatcasino.com | WOT Reputation Scorecard | WOT Web of Trust

No changes required to affiliate sites and it has the potential to harness the wider community, players included. It also has the benefit of intercepting players both before they even go to a site via google and AFTER they are sent to a rogue operator by a rogue or ignorant affiliate, but BEFORE they deposit their hard-earned.

Other thoughts...

It would be highly inconvenient for a rogue operation to have their domains added to the Spamhaus domain blocklist or equivalents, as suddenly they can no longer deliver their email.

/off to think more on this

 

[Aussie-Dave]

Hi Vladi, WCD, (all),

I think we need to determine what we are trying to accomplish.

• A penalty system for affiliate programs/casinos who shave.
• Or a complete abolishment of rogue programs & or casinos.

Vladi brings forth an idea that would throw a huge spanner into the operational cogs of a rogue casino. In addition to using Spamhaus would certainly almost cripple them.

I suppose the later could be used as a leverage tool towards aff programs that think they can shaft affiliates. Of course everything rides on proof. However as we've seen in the last few weeks, get enough people complaining about the same issues and it soon come to light that all is not Kosher.

WCD your idea is not a bad one, I simple don't think the out-come is achievable given the requirements to make it work.


Cheers



Dave

 

[dominique]

So, when the program yanks the links - does it substitute a different link? Or will there be advertising and reviews to the rogue without any links?

Either way, it's going to piss off visitors if they go through the trouble of reading a review and find no link, and then they just type in the name...

Or it's ging to piss them off when they click on something and end up someplace else...

I don't mind pissing of a rogue program, but I don't like my visitors being unhappy. I depend on return traffic.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

So, when the program yanks the links - does it substitute a different link? Or will there be advertising and reviews to the rogue without any links?

Either way, it's going to piss off visitors if they go through the trouble of reading a review and find no link, and then they just type in the name...

Or it's ging to piss them off when they click on something and end up someplace else...

I don't mind pissing of a rogue program, but I don't like my visitors being unhappy. I depend on return traffic.

What I understand there will be no link, the link will be automatically deleted if you have the Div layer for each casino ref in place.

Trying to look at this from all angles it's not going to be player friendly, least with the current concept. Which although it maybe a nice solution for affiliates to leverage aff programs to toe the line, I don't see how it will benefit player usability. As you say Dom, its got the potential rub players up the wrong way.



Cheers



Dave

 

[Guard Dog]

It is a good concept and, essentially, it would mean that any DIV with the class or id = {roguecasino} would be removed via CSS.

So, if I were to put the following code around my link:

<div class="roguecasino"> .......linkhere.......</div>

Then that link would disappear when the casino went rogue. NOTE: 'roguecasino' would be the name of any casino property in lower case and without spacing.

What this would accomplish is that anyone linking to the CSS file would automatically remove links to rogue casino properties. Not a bad idea given that we are currently at the mercy of affiliate programs and rogues when they breach their contract and hold us hostage for links and money.

 

[lots0]

From what I see, about 75% of all new afiliates don't know how to code. They use a CMS like wordpress or soming else simular. So using Div tags is out of the question for them. You would need to make it a plugin for those folks.

Like Dave, I am not against the idea. But I am not so niave as to think that implementing something like this will be quick or easy.

For this 'Div system" to work it will need to be accecpted AND USED by the majority of affs.

For the record, I am not saying ya or nay, I am trying to figure out if this will work for me or not.

 

[bonusgeek]

Bernie's idea is a good one and it gives us clout to act as one voice. A couple of things give me pause though. Right now if I am going to drop a program I just change redirect their links to a different casino in my htaccess file and go through and change the content when I get around to it. But I have so much on my plate half the time I don't know where I am going to start my day let alone implementing a new system across a ton of sites.

And I am a little reluctant to implementing a system where others have control of what content serves up on my sites. I realize that I can just take out the div tags and keep a program if I felt it was justified, but my issue is then my days and work load become dictated by someone else and this is what scares me. I have so much going on I just can't handle something like that across thousands of pages. One incident like that and I spend a week going through 100 sites and every page searching and taking out divider tags and my other projects get neglected. I would just rather redirect their links in the htaccess file to a brand not stealing from me and change the content when I get around to it. The end result is still the same, that program doesn't get anymore traffic but I am able to do things exactly how and when I want to do them.

So while I like Bernies idea I can appreciate why an affiliate might be reluctant to getting on board with this. Perhaps the pros far out weigh the cons. I don't know but everyones situation is different so everyone needs to understand that different people have different priorities and it's not always about money. A lot of the times it is but not always. I have turned down tens of thousands in advances offered to me to promote rogue casinos. I have also kept up certain brands that other affiliates felt the need to take down.

Vegas Affiliates is a good example. They are one of my better performing programs. Do I think they need to take down floridita from that rewards page. Absolutely. But am I going to drop them if they don't. Probably not. Up until a few months ago I was still consistently having $100K in monthly deposits long after microgaming pulled out of the usa. And I was only sending them a handful of depositors every month. Meanwhile I have never broken $5K in monthly deposits with any other microgaming program other than rewards. Actually I did fair with Fortune for a while, but I caught them red handed manipulating my reports on my big players so I don't trust them either. So am I going to take down my best performing microgaming program to prove a point? No, not when they are the only microgaming program I trust to let me grow and earn like I know my traffic should be doing for me. Rewards is the only other I trust, my traffic just doesn't do well with their freeplay stuff.

I guess my point is there is some sort of acceptable loss for me and I am not going to sweat the small stuff. If a casino group pays their players like they should, then there are certain things I am willing to live with on the affiliate side. I think VA is going to take off floridita anyways and I have no problem expressing my discontent with them about it, but the once in a blue moon one of my players goes to that page and clicks on that one casino that doesn't track isn't going to be a deal breaker for me. Not if it means I have to drop them and push the microgaming programs who I think steal 50-75% of my earnings. That is not a good business decision for me.

Situations like this are what gives me pause about partaking in this sort of program. On one hand I can see people voting this is theft and I really wouldn't blame them. But for me in the grand scheme of things it's just small potatoes. Just being honest here.

 

[Vladi]

Hi Vladi, WCD, (all),

I think we need to determine what we are trying to accomplish.

• A penalty system for affiliate programs/casinos who shave.
• Or a complete abolishment of rogue programs & or casinos.

Vladi brings forth an idea that would throw a huge spanner into the operational cogs of a rogue casino. In addition to using Spamhaus would certainly almost cripple them.

I suppose the later could be used as a leverage tool towards aff programs that think they can shaft affiliates.

That last point is exactly what I have in mind. Make an example of a group that everyone knows is rotten and you will see the rest sit up and take notice.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

Not if it means I have to drop them and push the microgaming programs who I think steal 50-75% of my earnings. That is not a good business decision for me.

That's my point exactly...The affiliates like yourself who would give Bernie's idea teeth, wont drop a program because they earn decent money for them. The affiliates that will drop XYZ are those who nickel and dime for the program. Sorry but practicality calls, those links ain't going to do squat.

Situations like this are what gives me pause about partaking in this sort of program. On one hand I can see people voting this is theft and I really wouldn't blame them. But for me in the grand scheme of things it's just small potatoes.

I've not lost sight to the fact there is a huge divergence in what one affiliate earns to another. On a personal note, although loss of income through being scrapped is a concern, it's also the dishonesty and long term trust factor lost which does influence the grand scheme of things.

However I still believe Vladi's proposal far out-weights Bernie's proposal. Especially as it involves no coding, no link pulling, just a combined group submission & or a number of individual complaints to get guaranteed results.

Make an example of a rogue casino, close their operation down and watch how quickly aff programs fall into line.

As a side note, IMO this isn't about revenge it's about forcing a fair playing field for gaming affiliates. Because frankly the number of programs that are pulling funky sh#t lately is increasing. We've all tried reason and discussion but that doesn't work. So the law of the jungle comes into play. We need to protect our income, in addition to having gaming programs respect us as their partners.

Affiliates are at mercy of programs - 9 x out of 10 are owned by the casino/gaming venue.

Based on my stats & number crunching (over the last 10 years), JMO but I believe if the majority could shave without being busted they would. Making this a win/win for the programs and their gaming venues and as always a exercise of 1 step forward and 2 steps back for affiliates.

That sort of treatment needs to be stopped and I sincerely believe Vladi's proposal will do just that!



Cheers



Dave

 

[bonusgeek]

That's my point exactly...The affiliates like yourself who would give Bernie's idea teeth, wont drop a program because they earn decent money for them. The affiliates that will drop XYZ are those who nickel and dime for the program. Sorry but practicality calls, those links ain't going to do squat.

No I'm just not gonna pull a program over petty stuff. I was making $10K plus a month with Fortune for a long time and had no problem walking away from them and my player base because I found out they were manipulating my reports. There are many other instances but I don't feel the need to defend myself. My point was just that I am going to pick my battles. I don't want to be part of crusades that nit programs over every single thing and I was just painting a picture on a potential situation that I don't want to find myself in if I were to implement a program like Bernie's and it was voted that VA links were going to be disabled.

And please note I am not calling Bernie or anyone else here a nit because they are speaking their minds about Floridita being on their rewards page. Shit your supposed to bitch and moan. If VA doesn't resolve that situation satisfactorily I will have something else to say about it too. But when it comes to pulling a program and restructuring my business, yea I'm gonna pick my battles and them having some link at the bottom of a page that will probably never affect me one single time isn't one of them.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

No I'm just not gonna pull a program over petty stuff.

Neither would I...I doubt anyone would...it wouldn't be a wise business choice.

Edit: Reading back over your reply I think you've mis-understood my comments.

I was making $10K plus a month with Fortune for a long time and had no problem walking away from them and my player base because I found out they were manipulating my reports.

Fortune who?


Cheers



Dave