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I’m somewhat amused by all this
Am I the only one?Personally, without Greek’s aid, what I believe will happen is that 888 will get to continue as normal. It sounds like we have to find all the scraper sites and tell 888 about them before they will do anything about it. That is crap.
They ARE involved, I don’t care what Shelly or anyone says. They were 2-3 years ago and they are today. It is just re-directed outside the organization instead of internal like it used to be.
Im glad you are amused Kw. Im not.
Quote:It sounds like we have to find all the scraper sites and tell 888 about them before they will do anything about it. That is crap.Yes, we do have to report the scraper sites and the affiliate ids doing it. Whats 888 supposed to do view each and every affiliate site on the internet and then determine whats original content and what isnt in each and every case? Come on get real. If we dont report whos doing this how in the world are they supposed to do anything about the problem?
Quote:Personally, without Greek’s aid, what I believe will happen is that 888 will get to continue as normal.Uh… while I do appreciate Greeks help and input I hardly think all of us are helpless and cant do anything without him. If thats the case then we are in sad shape indeed. Guess I better cancel that new home I was building.
Oh and by the way Greek left us… We didnt throw him out. People posted questions about scraping and he blew a gasket.
Quote:They ARE involved, I don’t care what Shelly or anyone says. They were 2-3 years ago and they are today.I know for a fact that this scraping is being done by affiliates and I know who they are and I have met most of them. If YOU have proof that 888 is involved directly then please post it. Hunches, gut feelings or things you heard third hand or via the grapevine is NOT proof. Its inuendo and it doesnt help us solve the problem.
Professor – you say that the real problem here is cpa, yes?
What do you think of 888.com’s decision to re-open cpa to new affiliates this month?
shoevenus
Professor wrote:I know for a fact that this scraping is being done by affiliates and I know who they are and I have met most of them. If YOU have proof that 888 is involved directly then please post it. Hunches, gut feelings or things you heard third hand or via the grapevine is NOT proof. Its inuendo and it doesnt help us solve the problem.So you know this … you know who they are .. and they remain active ??
Why?
:lookarounWhy have they not been closed down by Shelley and 888.com?
This is why many people think it’s obvious these people have 888.con‘s blessing and support.
How can they be known about and still active ?
:madat:The only reason I can give is the lure of the mighty dollar.
Given 888.con‘s ability to shut down small affiliates at the drop of a hat – just as soon as they see a downturn in their profitability – 888.con could close these scrapers too.
But they do NOT. They do not want to !!!
It’s not inertia – its simple an unwillingness to stop this behavour.And its …
:bullshit:Quote:Professor – you say that the real problem here is cpa, yes?What do you think of 888.com’s decision to re-open cpa to new affiliates this month?
I think that would be an amazingly stupid thing to do and will lead to more long and painful threads like this one.
Quote:So you know this … you know who they are .. and they remain active ??
Why?Several reasons.
1. Because I am the “Professor” not the “Inspector”. I have no power to stop them or I would.
2. I live in the United States and the four largest scrapers are all overseas. Two in Israel and 2 in Quebec. If they were Physically within my reach I would have solved this problem long ago quietly and permanantly.
Quote:Given 888.con’s ability to shut down small affiliates at the drop of a hat – just as soon as they see a downturn in their profitability – 888.con could close these scrapers too.But they do NOT. They do not want to !!!
It’s not inertia – its simple an unwillingness to stop this behavour.They have stated they ARE willing to do so and I am working with them towards this end. I will report the big guys. We need help rounding up all the small fry who are doing this now too.
Rather then curse the darkness light a few candles and help us shed the light on these scrapers. Lets see what happens.
If 888 does nothing tangible then we will de certify them and put an end to this endless barage of negative posts.
I understand what your saying mate – and I don’t mean to have a go at you – or the CAP staff (in fact I’m sure that I haven’t)
But honestly – given the amount of cash involved it cannot be hard for 888.con to locate these “scraper affiliates” and close the affiliate account … if there was any desire at all to do so.
The scrapers are obviously doing it for the money … and to be allowed to continue suggest a profit motive for 888.con as well.
If a competant admin person at 888.con had access to a report of top 100 (or 1000) affiliates – and cross referenced the site names to the reported lists of domain names and affiliate Id’s then it would not take long.
And given the outrage amoungst affilaites – 888.con could actually be proactive
Given 888.con‘s vast number of domains that they run as their own legitimate advertising portals – and this is not disputed by anyone – they obviously have a team of skilled internet people.
Are we really expected to believe that the skills to quickly identify these scaper sites and cross reference to an affilaite report is beyond 888.con and their skill set?
:rasberry:It’s not as if 888.con are babes in the internet woods and don’t know how to find them (indeed they probably only have to go into the next office – but that’s pure conjecture on my part).
:sarcasm:EDIT FOR CLARITY
Now – if instead of exchanging pleasantries with the flunkies – we were actually allowed to go in and talk with the 888.con affiliate controllers who have the power to suspend affiliate IDs then :
END OF EDIT… you know that you could get this sorted in a couple of days Professor – our man Greek could get it done in a couple of hours – and even I could probably work it out eventually
:blush:But there has to be a will within the company … and right now there obviously is not … they’ve done it to 100’s of legitimate affiliates. But not to this mob.
The almighty profit line is mammon at 888.con …
Quote:You know that you could get this sorted in a couple of days – our man Greek could get it done in a couple of hours – and even I could probably work it out eventuallyWell thats certainly helpful. I would expect we should have this all sorted by morning. If I knew it was as simple as all that I would have stepped aside and let you guys fix this problem in hours rather then wasting my time.
Ok guys whats the fix? What do we do? Form a massive boycott of 888 by affiliates who aren’t promoting them anyway? Threaten them with exposure in the London newspapers? Drop them as certified partners. Pummel them daily for weeks on end at the message board here?
Quote:our man Greek could get it done in a couple of hoursThen why for the love of god did he keep posting over and over on this thread since 03-10-2006, 01:27 Am. ???? Why didnt he put this to bed the first day? The first week? The first Month???? Does he have no pity for us poor affies?
Gooner what are you waiting for? If you can fix it PLEASE do so. If you can get this thorn out of my ass I will gladly pay you a handsome fee.
Sorry prof … I wasn’t clear enough.
(in my head I thought it made sense but I missed a step out)I was talking about if we were in at 888.con simply talking to their affiliate controllers with the power to delete scrapper ID’s then it would take only a small amount of time to end the profit motive for scrapers.
(I’ll go and edit it)
:hehe:Professor wrote:Ok guys whats the fix? What do we do? Form a massive boycott of 888 by affiliates who aren’t promoting them anyway? Threaten them with exposure in the London newspapers? Drop them as certified partners. Pummel them daily for weeks on end at the message board here?ohh … you know I can’t tell you that … or I can but it won’t be popular and I understand that there are significant business impacts …
But since you asked …
End the certification.
State that as they are unwilling to suspend black hat scrapers and plagiarists that it is pointless in ethical affiliates trying to compete and promote 888.con
So certification is withdrawn.
With a suitable press release.
888.con are smart people, with top internet skills on tap.
Their business is the internet and search engines.
THey could end this scraper plague tomorrow.So given 888.con‘s current inertia …
How can they be CAP certified?
What does the CAP certification stand for?It can hardly be a CAP recommendation of an affiliate program that represents fair-play and responsiveness to affiliate concerns … so what does it now mean?
Shelly has the power to suspend affiliate IDs and has promised us she would do so. Why is it necessary to call her a flunkie? I dont think that is terribly sporting. Insulting the affiliate managers at 888 isnt going to win us any support within their organization. I know there have been a flurry of posts today, but did you read when I posted this?
Quote:Guys I just got off the phone with Shelly and Brian from 888. They are REALLY trying their best to assist us in finding a solution to this situation. The issue is that affiliates of Tradal are the ones practicing scraping and they are NOT employees of 888 or even Tradal.The only smoking guns are ones which have been readily admitted all along. Yes, there are affiliates using scraping. 888 is aware of this and does NOT support that practice. They have stated over and over that they will and do SUSPEND any affiliate account that does Scraping or content theft.
They have made a firm committment that whenever we supply an affiliate ID thats associated with this type of behavior they will verify that the affiliate is doing this and then suspend that affiliate and retain their commissions.
This certainly seems reasonable and proactive to me.
Furthermore they DO own thousands of gambling related domains. This is not uncommon. I personally own thousands of domains too, as do many of you. There is nothing sinister about this.
Establishing that there are ties between Tradal and 888 is also no great discovery. Everyone knows that Tradal has been a super affiliate of the Casino On Net brand since they opened the doors. Tradal also generates more revenue than all their other affiliates combined by a very wide margin, so its nieve to think that 888 is about to abandon that business relationship.
Guys I think it’s best to work WITH 888 to get rid of these scrapers. Alienating the program and creating a hostile enviroment where they cant even get in a word in edgewise with us is NOT going to help solve anything. You are just going to create a wall that makes cooperation difficult if not impossible.
I know everyone loves to have a cause to rally around. And Scraping is a VERY serious issue that HAS to be resolved. I just think the best way to beat this thing is by removing the profit to the scrapers. By working WITH the programs we can do this. If you just shut the casino(s) off from the mainstream affiliate community the only people they will have left to work with will be the scrapers and black hatters and the problem will only get worse.
EVERY problem we have ever solved at CAP has come through cooperation. This is too serious a threat to abandon an approach with proven results.
Shelly is one of the good “guys” lets work with her to get over this hurdle.They are going to get back to us in 24 to 48 hours with a detailed action list of what’s being done to help us stamp out scraping. Lets hold off with the rotten egg and tomato throwing for awhile please until we see what they have to offer.
I really do think they are going announce some positive movement tomorrow or Weds. Is it too much to ask to wait for that to take place?
I hope I am not being unreasonable in asking us to give fixing this thing a try.
Once we do that Gooner then there is no more communication lines open and any influence we had on the situation is lost.
I know on the surface it appears to be a simple thing to just throw the towel in every time there is an affiliate concern with a program, but if we do that we basically lose the battle.
There were calls just like this one to throw out Referback and Fortune Affiliates when they made changes to the terms and conditions. I held fast in the belief that through communication we could effect a change and we did.
Do you really believe we would have brought them to the table if we just slammed the door in their faces? I dont.
On this I must agree with the professor – it would be a mistake to cut off communications.
I appreciate being able to at least communicate here.
Nonetheless, I think 888 needs to do their own investigation and take proper actions. Not tell the thief to remove one of the tens of thousands sites he has but ALL of them.Until this has happened, 888 can be the number one blacklisted casino listed under “blacklisted casinos” in google.
http://www.gamesandcasino.com/blacklist.htm
The professor said:
Jumping up on a soap box and stamping your feet and screaming wont do anything.
I can see that now.
The above is the start of some real action.
Chatmaster wrote:Yep, this thread is now officially cooled, but I also would like to add that I am most annoyed with Greek’s lack of evidence and the fact that I was willing to waste my time to try to find the evidence you didn’t produce. :fencing:Sorry Prof, I promise I have said my say.
Evidence, evidence and evidence.
Do you really think that this kind of gangs are using an official contract and the services of a notary to scrape sites?
The only way to investigate a matter like this is on the basis of some related proof and that is indeed what greek and others are doing in this thread.
That kind of canned argument many times is a support for corruption.The affiliate division has no control over what the casino division does. The affiliate program has no say when the casino chooses to advertise via gator or whenu. The affiliate program cannot stop Cassava portals from spamming blogs. The affiliate program cannot stop Cassava from outsourcing domain purchasing, scraping, redirecting, spamming via third party marketing companies. :blahblah:
The affiliate program claims they have no control over how Tradal affiliates promote the 888 brand. We were all told the affiliate program was going to cease using their CPA program, now we discover that they have reintroduced it with stricter policies for closing down accounts and seizing profits. :banger:
You stated the identity of these scrapers is well known and that you have met most of them. If that is true then why don’t you name and shame them? Further, if they are so well known how are they still actively scraping and promoting 888? :beatup:
I am all for an open and friendly table for discussion, but I have to agree with gooner, what good is certification if programs like 888 are showing up at the table and eating all of the food and drinking all of the wine without saying grace? :1circling
As for waiting and seeing what will happen next, this isn’t a new issue, its been going on for a long time. I suspect nothing but another excuse will be happening. I think its time we follow Dom’s lead and add them to our own craplist. :rasberry:
Also agree on the call for evidence, plenty has been provided in this thread and others. Each and every piece of it provided thus far provides all that I need. I don’t need to see that Cassavas name is on the registration form of scraper domains. :fencing:
That’s a good point you made about evidence, villa10.
