Hidden marketing in Wordpress plugins – Wordpress should clean up their act

December 30, 2009 · Filed Under Blogging software, WordPress, advertising, affiliate, scam · Comment 

I am getting increasingly annoyed by Wordpress plugins that pretend to be free, but that in reality are commercial. Is Wordpress really going to permit that kind of hidden marketing on their sites and via their blogs? Do they get paid for it? Are they unable to distinguish between free plugins and commercial products?

In many countries around the world, for instance in the Scandinavian countries, one of which I come from, some of the types of marketing used here are actually illegal. Does Wordpress want to permit marketing that is illegal in some of the markets they apply to, and which are very borderline even in the US and the UK?

Look for instance at “All in one SEO” and “WP Ajax Edit Comments” plugins. One pushes you to look at their offerings every time you upgrade, the other one forces you to register on their site and promotes a “professional version” there.

In my opinion these and similar plugins should be banned from marketing via the Wordpress channels, or at the very least be marked clearly as “for pay” or “commercial products” or something of this kind. I am strongly against marketing where things are presented as free which when they are not!

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Affiliates scammed at Commission Junction?

August 7, 2008 · Filed Under Adobe Inc, Blogging, Commission Junction, ad network, advertising, affiliate, eBay, monetize, scam · Comment 

For me the whole story with Commission Juction started a long time ago. I have written about it in this blog previously, without mentioning the name of Commission Junction, is a post entitled Monetizing your blog – make the smart choices.

One of the ad agencies I had an affiliate deal with, I can reveal now, was Commission Junction. It, in turn was (is?) affiliated with eBay, and gave me ads from a number of great companies that I was happy to promote, like for instance eBay and Adobe.

And I spent a large number of hours finding the right ads, placing them on my pages, monitoring progress, and so on. And, according to the stats, a lot of people clicked the ads.

But guess what? I made no money at all! According to the same stats, not one of the people clicking the ads became leads for the advertisers. Nor did any of them buy anything. Not one single soul!

So in the blog post I cited above, I wrote:

So far, I haven’t made a nickel on those affiliate deals. Many of them, I think, are scams. At least a large number of them are structured in ways that favor the advertiser and possibly the agency, but definitely not me. So somebody else is getting the value I create.

It now turns out that mostly likely I was scammed! There is now a class action suit against Commission Junction pending, and a proposed settlement:

The proposed settlement will resolve claims that Defendants failed to adequately monitor Commission Junction’s Network for the use by third parties of software that does not
comply with Commission Junction’s (“CJ”) Publisher Code of Conduct and that is intended to steal or divert commissions from publishers on CJ’s network (“Non-compliant Software”), failed to adequately monitor or prevent third parties from engaging in the theft or “hijacking” of commissions from Advertisers and Publishers on CJ’s Network, and failed to make sufficient disclosures regarding the existence of Non-compliant Software and commission theft, resulting in losses to both advertisers and publishers on the CJ Network.

The suit, and proposed settlement includes ValueClick, Inc., Commission Junction, Inc. and Be Free. Neither of these parties, of course, admit any guilt or wrong doing. But they have agreed to pay publishers and advertisers even so!?!

So yeah, monetizing blogs and websites IS difficult, and there are scams! So look out friends, be careful, watch your stats and trust your instincts!

PS: Link to info about the settlement

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