< Matt and William please note: Please take the following as advice from one publisher to another, and not as an attack on either of you. I am not interested in delving into the specifics of your case, and have nothing against you personally >
SI, like any company, has its eye on the bottom line, and cannot afford to divert its own profits into the pockets of cheaters (and I'm not accusing you of being a cheater, since your case obviously involved several accidental incidents) who not only defraud SI, but degrade the quality of the traffic that SI is able to deliver to its various partners. Nor can the company be expected to support those who (whether willingly or as a result of poor control over the content under their management) place SI code on pages that violate the terms and conditions of the program. In addition, SI cannot be held responsible for the manual filtering of "good" traffic from the more undesirable deliveries, since this again reduces their margins (and thus the profits of those affiliates who are happy to abide by the rules, while pulling in $1000s through 100% legitimate means).
This reminds me of an interesting figure that Mark Welch (the former editor of Adbility) received during correspondence with Overture/GoTo.com's affiliate manager at the time when the company dropped its payout to affiliates from 3 cents/search to 2 cents almost a year ago. During his conversation, the affiliate manager revealed that fraud prevention and the administrative/technological systems associated with traffic validation were so expensive as to dramatically reduce the viability of the program. He went on to claim that in the absence of fraud, GoTo would likely be paying 7 cents/search (and this was on a blank, prefillable search box at the time). This may help to explain why not only SI's staff, but its 10s of thousands of satisfied affiliates, ar determined to ensure that the quality of the inventory managed by the firm remains both valid and of a reasonable quality.
The "SI vs the world" argument has been raised on dozens of previous occasions, so I won't bother digging up old points for the purposes of making a point here that will undoubtedly draw flames except to simply say that if you don't personally agree with the way they operate (and none of their policies are secret given that both Robert and Ron are some of the most outspoken members of the affiliate management community), or if you have doubts as to your ability to moderate content appearing on your servers, don't work with them.
The fact that SI accepts free hosts at all makes them almost unique in the market, so instead of attempting to wage a personal vendetta against the company and its existing affiliates, maybe William and yourself should be thankful that you were fortunate enough to have been accepted at all. Then, walk away and either outsource your sales through another agency or sell your popunder inventory directly. Lord knows, there's a wealth of demand out there for the popunder format at present.
Not to mention that there are countless startup ad networks and affiliate managers out there, and SI remains a relatively small player in the grander online advertising market, so it's not as if you have no choice. (Aside: If you are seeking advice as to which companies may be willing to support your service, or how best to sell inventory directly, this forum's members will be more-than-willing to help)
Having said that, if you'd still like to voice your complaints about Standard Internet, your best bet is to do so via established channels (ie forums such as this - following the correct procedure, business complaint systems and the legal system).
I think I speak for the majority of members here when I say that your ongoing quest for the decimation of SI's reputation here (apart from being explicitly against the rules of the forum - which have been pointed out to both of you previously) is growing old, and doing more to degrade your own reputations in what is becoming an increasingly intimate business community.
Let's try to keep these threads on-topic in the future.
2 cents.
SI, like any company, has its eye on the bottom line, and cannot afford to divert its own profits into the pockets of cheaters (and I'm not accusing you of being a cheater, since your case obviously involved several accidental incidents) who not only defraud SI, but degrade the quality of the traffic that SI is able to deliver to its various partners. Nor can the company be expected to support those who (whether willingly or as a result of poor control over the content under their management) place SI code on pages that violate the terms and conditions of the program. In addition, SI cannot be held responsible for the manual filtering of "good" traffic from the more undesirable deliveries, since this again reduces their margins (and thus the profits of those affiliates who are happy to abide by the rules, while pulling in $1000s through 100% legitimate means).
This reminds me of an interesting figure that Mark Welch (the former editor of Adbility) received during correspondence with Overture/GoTo.com's affiliate manager at the time when the company dropped its payout to affiliates from 3 cents/search to 2 cents almost a year ago. During his conversation, the affiliate manager revealed that fraud prevention and the administrative/technological systems associated with traffic validation were so expensive as to dramatically reduce the viability of the program. He went on to claim that in the absence of fraud, GoTo would likely be paying 7 cents/search (and this was on a blank, prefillable search box at the time). This may help to explain why not only SI's staff, but its 10s of thousands of satisfied affiliates, ar determined to ensure that the quality of the inventory managed by the firm remains both valid and of a reasonable quality.
The "SI vs the world" argument has been raised on dozens of previous occasions, so I won't bother digging up old points for the purposes of making a point here that will undoubtedly draw flames except to simply say that if you don't personally agree with the way they operate (and none of their policies are secret given that both Robert and Ron are some of the most outspoken members of the affiliate management community), or if you have doubts as to your ability to moderate content appearing on your servers, don't work with them.
The fact that SI accepts free hosts at all makes them almost unique in the market, so instead of attempting to wage a personal vendetta against the company and its existing affiliates, maybe William and yourself should be thankful that you were fortunate enough to have been accepted at all. Then, walk away and either outsource your sales through another agency or sell your popunder inventory directly. Lord knows, there's a wealth of demand out there for the popunder format at present.
Not to mention that there are countless startup ad networks and affiliate managers out there, and SI remains a relatively small player in the grander online advertising market, so it's not as if you have no choice. (Aside: If you are seeking advice as to which companies may be willing to support your service, or how best to sell inventory directly, this forum's members will be more-than-willing to help)
Having said that, if you'd still like to voice your complaints about Standard Internet, your best bet is to do so via established channels (ie forums such as this - following the correct procedure, business complaint systems and the legal system).
I think I speak for the majority of members here when I say that your ongoing quest for the decimation of SI's reputation here (apart from being explicitly against the rules of the forum - which have been pointed out to both of you previously) is growing old, and doing more to degrade your own reputations in what is becoming an increasingly intimate business community.
Let's try to keep these threads on-topic in the future.
2 cents.
