Must read if you advertise online
Are you familar with Zango ? ZangoCash, 180Solutions ?
Zango is a "adware" program, really a spy bot that is bundled with other programs and in most cases is downloaded without your knowledge or consent.
I recently had Zango installed on my PC when downloading bearshare. I happened to be clicking through one of my sites on this same computer and when I landed on the sponsor's site I had a pop under come up with the same sponsor on it. The pop under ad was supported by Zango. Out of curiosity, I checked my cookies and sure enough my cookie, was overwritten by their cookie, with their affiliate information in it.
So it works like this. Anyone that has Zango installed on their pc, when they go to your site and click your link to a sponsor program, your cookie will be set then they are redirected to the sponsors site. (the way it is suppose to work). However, Zango detects what urls are in your browser based on keywords, so when they see ebay in your browser for example, zango will launch their ebay popunder page that sets their ebay affiliate account. Now since your cookie is set first, their cookie (seconds later) is the newer one and will over write yours. They get credit for the sale, you get nothing but a hit... wonder why your conversions are going to shit ?
They did nothing but install spyware on to your computer. That was your traffic, your customer, your sale, your fucking money. They hijacked your sale and they get paid for it.
We need to do a couple things to prevent this.
First everyone that is promoting zangocash needs to stop doing it NOW. You are shooting yourself in the foot. You make your .40 or whatever per a zango install but then you will never get credit to the other sponsors you are advertising once the surfer has zango installed. You might as well drop all the other sponsors if you are pushing zangocash, you will never get credit for those sales.
Second, we need sponsors to be accountable for this. We need them to step up and start banning these accounts. We need to report them everytime we see this happening. I will go to the extent to hire someone full time to collect affiliate accounts on these assholes and report them all day long. But we need the affiliate companies to cancel them without pay or this will not work.
Some people have said the affiliate companies dont care, they wont do anything about this? They are only hurting themselves if they dont. That signup Zango stole was one of our signups, so if they cancel Zango's accounts, they wont lose signups, the signups will just get reported properly to the people who EARNED the signup. Also, Zango isn't just ripping off afiliates, they are ripping off affiliate owners. If you type in your affiliate company's name into your browser, usually that would be a sale the company would make, and not have to pay out a comission on it. Not if the person has Zango installed. When the surfer who is infected with Zango types in a url, Zango will pop up their page to set their cookie to get credit for the sale. So they are stealing money from the program owners as well.
I am not 100% sure how this works with session tracking but i am pretty sure they manipulate that as well.
Good reading:
Explains it a little better then I can: www.benedelman.org
Zango was just sued by surfers for causing damage to their computers. The case was dropped by the plaintiffs but the law firm felt they had a good case. www.clickz.com
I am in the process of contacting this firm to see if they would be interested in a class action lawsuit on behalf of the advertisers that Zango is cheating out of tens of millions.
Every time Zango makes an affiliate sale, that is a sale that was stolen from either the affiliate company (type-ins) or from the affiliate, from a link on their website. Zango makes tens of millions of dollars a year.
The affects of zango - Everyone who downloads bearshare has zango installed on their pc. Recently Myspace users were infected by the thousands by Zango, see: blogs.zdnet.com Do a search on " Zango Myspace" Myspace is a top traffic site on the net, if people are being infected left and right by this zango spybot, then think of the sales we are losing, and they are stealing everyday from us. Then there are also the thousands of people who promote zangocash, i am sure many of which install it without you knowing on a surfer's computer so they can make their .40 a download or whatever they are paid.
We are losing tons of money to these thieves.
At the very least keep bumping this thread so sponsors will be forced to address this issue and people will know to stay away from Zangocash.
If you are interested in getting involved in a class action suit let me know. If the case seems like it has merit (which i imagine it should) I plan on persuing it. One way or another these people need to be stopped. I will know something soon about this.
Funny, everyone talks about how conversions are going to shit these days, but back in the 97,98,99,00 it was easier to make money online. Who knows maybe it is till easy to make money, you just need to own a spybot to steal signups from the rest of us. If these guys were not around who knows how much more money we would be making and how much better we would be converting on our sales if we were actually getting credit for them.
Can you imagine paying $1 per click for a google adword spot. just to have Zango steal your signup....
Shit has to stop.
