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This is one of the largest cases of theft I have dealt with so far.
CAP user: ocdollar
GPWA user: tipcasinoThis person has removed some of my content, as requested, but not all of it. Also, I’m quite sure that he is using stolen content form many other affiliate websites.
This seems to be a long-time habit of his. I found some old threads at GPWA the other day, and it was like deja vu — he was stealing from people back then, and he’s still at it today.
He sets up one-page websites that contain stolen content. These one-page sites link to 4 “main” sites. The main sites are:
casinoaim.com
allcasino.org
mostonlinecasino.com
onlinecasinodollar.comBelow are the URLs (and screenshots) of the pages where I found content that was stolen from me. Some of my stolen content has been removed, but I suspect the rest of the text on those pages isn’t his own work — he probably stole that too.
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-river-belle-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://www.primaryonlinecasino.com/
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-wild-jack-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://www.casinofoot.com/
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-first-web-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://www.onlinecasinofire.com/
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-virgin-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://www.casinotower.net/
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-paddy-power-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://www.casinocub.com/
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-slotocash-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://casinosum.com/
My original: http://www.5starslots.com/review-golden-reef-casino.html
Stolen: xhttp://www.casinosow.com/
Image: http://www.choicegambling.com/x/casinosow-golden-reef.jpg (can’t include in the thread because the forum has a 6 image limit)Hi
First off I would like to say thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Secondly that we take content theft seriously and will always work with affiliates to reslove any problems they may have.
We have contacted the affiliate and given them 24 hours to remove and or update the offending text.
I will monitor their sites personally and if there is duplication again in the process I will shut down their account.
I have also contacted the affiliate the text was taken from and offered them some time of one of our content writers.
And Dave for being so proactive about this if you need some unique content from us please let me know.
Cheers
Fintan
Thanks for taking action, Fintan. :thumbsup:
@fintan 159853 wrote:
Hi
First off I would like to say thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Secondly that we take content theft seriously and will always work with affiliates to reslove any problems they may have.
We have contacted the affiliate and given them 24 hours to remove and or update the offending text.
I will monitor their sites personally and if there is duplication again in the process I will shut down their account.
I have also contacted the affiliate the text was taken from and offered them some time of one of our content writers.
And Dave for being so proactive about this if you need some unique content from us please let me know.
Cheers
Fintan
Pretty impressive. Rare to see aff managers make an offer like that :hattip:
hi all,
Content thief update
casinotower.net, a site that links back to allcasino.org, operated by the affiliate who runs onlinecasinodollar.com, has copied content from another webmaster for the third time in a row.
I asked them for an explanation about the copied content, they said an outsourced SEO company they use copied the content by mistake (how you copy content by mistake is still a mystery to me btw)
They went on to say they told the SEO company to stop and the content was removed this morning, but that was swiftly replaced by content stolen from another site (!)
Type in casinotower.net in http://www.copyscape.com (if nothing comes up they probably changed the content again, but I have the screenshot
)They seems to be affiliated with every single gaming affiliate program there is out there, so I can’t contact every single aff manager, but maybe we can make some noise with this thread, especially since this affiliate is a repeat offender.
Affiliates or mods, could you try to direct affiliate managers to this thread to see who takes a stand?
I usually contact affiliate managers in such instances, and the response rate on such issue is quite appalling.
They were flagged on GPWA long ago, and the only reason those people are still in business is that some affiliate managers do not take a stand. This is either because they are not being informed, by fear of revenue loss, by lack of ethics or just plain laziness.
Either way, this is not doing the industry any good and something should be done.
Done with the rant now
Thanks for the udpate, Pierrick. I agree 100% with everything you wrote.
Affiliate managers — please locate this rogue affiliate and give him the boot!
Well I think a few things could be done about this. Personally I think for an affiliate who wants to make a complaint to affiliate managers it might be better by RSS or by email instead of expecting or hoping all the affiliate managers would read these threads. If I get the email it is easier for me to open up everything and would probably allow someone like Engineer to post more details, perhaps some that have some privacy involved. I think having a system like this might allow for action to be taken faster and all at once. Imagine the affiliate receiving 15 emails in a span of a few days all asking for stolen content to be removed or their accounts will be closed. I think for this to be effective it has to be in numbers.
For Engineer to make a complaint the most effective means at the moment is either by forum or by individual contact and the affiliate’s time is valuable, actually everyone’s time is.
For affiliates who have stolen content and want to play the “dumb” card maybe getting them the basic tools or sites like CopyScape to check first would help. Also if I have some of this information already written up and ready to send the email to the thief affiliate would be easier to handle.
This weekend I have this on my task list to review the affiliates you mentioned to check for stolen content and if they are on my program I can give them a warning.
Closing comments about affiliate managers worried about losing business. If I threaten an affiliate to close their account due to theft I may lose business but in large numbers this is never an issue and cleans this up fast. If an email notification went out to all the affiliate managers then this concern would diminish (although personally I think we can handle losing a few affiliates who steal content). I believe there is more to gain than lose by doing the right thing.
John
1 more comment, this mailing list would be a useful too for me to communicate with other affiliate managers in the event that I have some problem affiliates as well. I am trying to do that at the moment but the threads are good but in this case I want all of my affiliate managers to know about it and take immediate action. I would say there is probably a need for some sort of opt-in list and I think it could be hosted either by CAP and GPWA but perhaps a more central role could be Affiliate Guard Dog.
John
thisisvegas;160747 wrote:1 more comment, this mailing list would be a useful too for me to communicate with other affiliate managers in the event that I have some problem affiliates as well. I am trying to do that at the moment but the threads are good but in this case I want all of my affiliate managers to know about it and take immediate action. I would say there is probably a need for some sort of opt-in list and I think it could be hosted either by CAP and GPWA but perhaps a more central role could be Affiliate Guard Dog.John
Count us in.
Cheers
Fintan
1 more comment, this mailing list would be a useful too for me to communicate with other affiliate managers in the event that I have some problem affiliates as well. I am trying to do that at the moment but the threads are good but in this case I want all of my affiliate managers to know about it and take immediate action. I would say there is probably a need for some sort of opt-in list and I think it could be hosted either by CAP and GPWA but perhaps a more central role could be Affiliate Guard Dog.
Opt-in list is a very good suggestion.
Maybe adding some sort of affiliate warning section to the monthly “CAP affiliate manager newsletter” sent by Natalie would be a start? Having AGD involved makes a lot of sense too. Proactive aff companies could be awarded a seal, much like AGD’s.Defining some sort of industry standard is probably far fetched; it’s ultimately the aff manager’s decision to give someone the boot, based on the evidence they gather and the harm that is being done to their or their affiliate partners’ businesses…But feeding (emails/newsletters/RSS) aff managers with adhoc/regular leads on potential content thieves/spammers/blackhatters could only help.
