| LED Digest 1906: PayPal, Blogs, DDoS, ICANN, etc |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... December 8, 2004 Issue #1906 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Lycos Anti-spam Screensaver ==-- <Moderator Comment> ~ Simon McArdle ~ Scott Wang --== Mysteriously Missing Code, Graphics ==-- ~ Veronica Yuill ~ Kevin Houston --== Advertising on Blogs ==-- ~ Adam Boettiger ~ Barry Morgan --== New ICANN Transfer Policy ==-- ~ Jim Gatton --== The PayPal vs Merchant Accounts Debate ==-- ~ Mary Lee ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Theft of Copywritten Material ==-- ~ Beth Vance ===== CONTINUING ================================= <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, Re Philip Scriver's post in yesterday's issue, Lycos Europe has pulled its anti-spam screensaver. The former location of the free screensaver, makelovenotspam.com, is nothing but a placeholder logo. Check out the news of its demise here: http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/1203lycospulls.html Turns out this DDoS attack software had already brought down a few sites and was by all accounts illegal. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted eh? :-) Also, Slashdot has a thread on the subject if you can put up with the typical 'smarty-pants' comments: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/02/2221253 Best wishes, Adam --------------------- From: Simon McArdle Subject: Anti-spam screensaver > Lycos is offering a free [screensaver] that works on > your computer down-time at requesting viewing [spam] > sites, but sending them no orders. - Philip Scriver, LED 1905 This makes Lycos just as bad as the spammers. This is Illegal and is called a distributed denial of service attack. Whoever in Lycos thought up this insane idea needs to be fired on the spot. If you get involved in this crime then you are aiding and abetting and could find yourself open to prosecution. Regards, Simon McArdle http://thelogocompany.net ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Scott Wang Subject: Lycos anti-spam screensaver > Save the screensaver and when your computer goes into idle just > watch those spamvertised sites get their come-appearance. - Philip Scriver, LED 1905 And the spammer will sit back watching his statistics saying WOW! Those are the best results I've ever had. I'm going to triple the size of my next campaign! I didn't get many sales so I'll just redesign the landing page. What I'm saying is that if EVERYONE had these screensavers and generated enough traffic to use up all of his bandwidth, the plan might work. But if only a few thousand people -- or even a million -- get the screensaver, I believe it could do more harm than good. We do not want to encourage them. The only way to block spam 100% is to use a challenge-response system like Email in Focus ( http://www.emailinfocus.com ). I have been using them for over 6 months, and instead of getting 200+ spam per day on my main business email address, I get 0. Why even mess around with the spam when you can block it legitimately? Scott Wang Scott's Computing ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: Missing code > Imagine my surprise when suddenly several medium size > graphics were missing from two different unrelated pages... > An examination of the code resident in the client computer > revealed that lines of code were missing in several places. - Lanell Grant, LED 1905 It sounds to me like the ad-blocking setting in Norton's firewall. It identifies any images of certain common sizes as ads, and removes them -- whether they are ads or not! HTH Veronica Yuill Archetype Information Technology Ltd http://www.archetype-it.com/english/ ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Kevin Houston Subject: Missing code Dear Lanell, Was the client computer running zone alarm or some other firewall (hardware or software) that might have been modifying the page before passing it to the browser? Were the missing pictures ads or would the name of the picture (or one of the sub-directories in the URL) lead a simple-minded program to think that they were ads? Were the pictures being served by a script, or were they just plain vanilla .jpgs? Later, Kevin Houston ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Adam Boettiger Subject: Blogs > Now, I'm confused. On one hand, who cares where the traffic is > coming from as long as it's coming, on the other, it makes me > think of possible click fraud and who-knows-what. Am I being > paranoid here? - Alex Hughart, LED 1904 Alex, to answer your questions briefly: 1. It really depends on what your site / business is designed to do and what action you want visitors to take. You should care where traffic is coming from *if* that traffic is not doing what you want it to do on your site. In other words, if my site was designed to sell something, you bet I would care where the traffic is coming from because I want *buyers* and not *browsers* or blow-by traffic. 2. In terms of click-fraud, this is only an issue if you are buying on a CPC basis from that site or network. If you're buying on a CPM basis you'd focus like you normally would - on your bottom line cost per visitor and cost per action. That's what is going to determine whether it is worthwhile to continue to advertise there. 3. If you're looking at advertising in blogs, there's an interesting company that does just that. I have no affiliation with it. Blogads.com Adam Boettiger http://www.businessconferencecalling.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Barry Morgan Subject: Blogs Alex, Livejournal may have some unique members but I do not believe they use overture or adsense or any other ads program to provide traffic to outside sites, so click fraud is not a likely concern. I would track the clickstreams of the users and see if they are really following links and converting to a few sales. Regards, Barry Morgan, Online Business Development Printa Systems, Inc. http://www.printa.com --------- new post - new topic --------- From: Jim Gatton Subject: Domain transfers While Peter D'Aprix quoted his domain registrar in LED Digest 1904 on the new domain transfer policy as, > ... even if a domain name is not locked it can only be > transferred if a transfer confirmation email sent to the > Administrative email address on record is approved. .. that's not how Godaddy views the change. The message I received from Godaddy.com today is, ----------------------- "The previous ICANN policy allowed us to deny requests to transfer your domain names to another registrar unless you explicitly confirmed to us your intent to transfer. The new ICANN policy removes that protection. When we receive a request to transfer your domain name to a new registrar, we will still attempt to contact you to confirm that you authorized the request. However, if you do not respond, or are not able to respond within 5 days, your domain name WILL be transferred. " ----------------------- So, do we infer from the apparent contradiction above that the bottom line is not ICANN policy but rather how the various registrar's decide to implement it? That they can choose either to be hard nosed ("...it can only be transferred if a transfer confirmation email sent to...email address on record is approved) or wishy-washy ("... if you do not respond...within 5 days, your domain name WILL be transferred" No doubt which policy I prefer! How about you? Jim Gatton http://good-health-weight-loss.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Mary Lee Subject: PayPal vs other > [Consider] the UNSEEN COST using a 3rd-party > actually creates for your bottom line... - Todd Sumrall, LED 1905 Todd's statements seem very intelligent, but the discussion was PayPal and he was way off the mark in all of his 3rd party processor suppositions as they relate to PayPal. I am sure his statements are true of many 3rd party processors, but not PayPal. I knew when reading his post that he was selling merchant services:-) 1. PayPal is much less expensive then a merchant account. Here is a complete breakdown of PayPal costs versus Merchant Costs: http://snipurl.com/b77n [paypal.com] 2. With a PayPal Business Account your merchant name is included on the customers billing statement. 3. They are excellent at fighting chargebacks on your behalf. In 2 years I have only had 1 attempted chargeback through PayPal & once I provided proof of sale & download the chargeback did not go through. 4. Until after my 2nd year in business I was not able to qualify for a Merchant Account. Todd's statement was not completely true: "3rd-party processors are magnetic for every under the rock merchant you can think of. They can't get their own merchant because they were terminated, not legit, and a myriad of other things. So off to 3rd-party they go. 3rd-party processors attract the ones merchant account providers risk departments kicked off their system." It is extremely hard for a new internet business to qualify for a merchant account. I was never terminated, I was legit etc... Merchant Account Providers are just suspicious of new internet business's, as it is possible they could be as Todd described & this makes it hard to qualify for a merchant account until you can prove that you are not one of these fly by nights. 5. PayPal deposits customer balances into FDIC-insured bank accounts. The company had asked for an opinion from the FDIC on whether it could pass the insurance protection on to its customers. In its advisory letter, the FDIC said the insurance protections -- up to $100,000 per customer per bank -- would extend to PayPal customers, even when PayPal deposited the funds for them. In addition their user agreement protects your money from any creditors in the case of insolvency. Considering how HUGE paypal is that event is highly unlikely. Sorry Todd you were off in all your marks as regards PayPal, but your points were good ones to take into consideration when choosing a 3rd party processor. Investigate these points & see how they stack up when considering a 3rd party processor. Mary Lee Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games http://www.dinnerandamurder.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Beth Vance Subject: Direct theft of copywritten web material I know that this has been addressed in the past, but I can't find it in the archives. I have discovered that a competitor has stolen the logo and words from my websites. They didn't even bother to change the image's name, or to re-phrase the words! My site has a copywrite notice on each page as well as "Copyright (c) 2004, Beth Vance" in the metatags. I have emailed with a request to remove the items, but have had no responce. They are a big site (corporation), and I'm just a little guy. I know that imitation is supposed to be the highest form of flattery, but this is downright theft. Any suggestions? Thanks, Beth Vance http://www.kidbow.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "A brother is a friend given by Nature." - Legouve * yesterday's quote should have been credited to Stephen Fry of "A Bit of Fry & Laurie". thanks to Paul Baldowski for catching that one! |
