I figured that was a good opening line from the article published in today's New York Times. - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/n...8989380-UmwT8nutLjOCAXSSmZ8hfw&pagewanted=all
I had heard some rumors about an article like this being published sometime this week, so I wanted to do some investigating of my own into the matter. I ended up finding out a lot more than any of the law enforcement detectives I spoke to about Craigslist and it's prostitution problem.
But how does this effect Affiliate Marketing and our industry? Well, unfortunately for many affiliates using Craigslist as a spamming haven, your days are numbered. Not because Craigslist will do much more than try to report you to your affiliate network, but because now the police are getting involved. Personally, I'd be A LOT more afraid of getting a call from the cops for pretending to be some hot chick who is looking for someone to signup to talk to her on a dating site than from your affiliate manager asking you to please stop spamming CL with their offers. Because that's going to be the next step, and it's not as far off as you think.
During my search, I picked up TONS and I seriously mean TONS of Craigslist spammer ads. Sure most of them were for prostitutes, but then there were those that were advertising True.com, Match.com, AdultFriendFinder.com, Alt.com, Passion.com, and just about every other dating site offer you could think of. I took a few of the ads I found and traced them to a handful of networks. I'm not going to name them here either, so you're safe for now, but holy shit, you networks need to haul ass in the compliance departments. I didn't bother reporting any of the listings, because I'm not a rat, and I'm sure some goody goody CL user will do it anyway. Plus I was just there to see how quickly it would take for me to find an affiliate using Craigslist as a marketing tool. It took me well under 10 minutes.
When I spoke to some police dept contacts about this, they said straight away that they knew the difference between a prostitution ad and an affiliate spam ad, but that they were going to start treating them instead of being a major prostitution charge, but rather as a computer crime, better explained as a type of FRAUD. A similar charge that has recently ROCKED the industry is that of the Florida State Attorney General's office in which they were investigating affiliates and affiliate networks allowing the use of advertising something that was not free, as a free service because no one told them not to. Sorry, but that excuse is getting old, and all it takes is ONE company to be on the losing side of a civil or criminal suit for that excuse to never be able to work again.
Either way, consider this a warning to the industry. STOP SPAMMING CRAIGSLIST AND STOP USING CRAIGSLIST AS A FORM OF ADVERTISING OFFERS FROM AFFILIATE/AD NETWORKS -- I DON'T CARE WHAT AN EBOOK OR BLOGGER RECOMMENDED, NOW IS THE TIME TO STOP. (real estate is still fine)
There's a great movie called "HEAT" (Al Pacino is a cop and Robert DeNiro is the bad guy). In it, DeNiro's character uses a reall solid line that I often use for myself sometimes --"Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." -- Meaning, don't kid yourself and think that just because you are spamming/advertising there and/or think you can push it for just a wee bit longer or let the greed take it's hold on you causing you to ignore this warning. Well, this is the heat coming around the corner, and I sure as hell hope that the affiliates who do spam or use CL as a marketing tool for dating sites or services that promote the chance to have sex, in exchange for paying the service money (while adult sites like these are not considered prostitution, creating an ad that has the user THINK it is, can be mistaken for it).
I've also heard from one great source over the last month or so that the boys over at the FTC are starting to take a long hard (no pun) look at how affiliates market and promote adult dating sites. While for years most of the rumors have been pure speculation, there are ad networks that are starting to be named a hell of a lot more often than usual, and advertisers/adult dating sites that are also catching a lot more attention than they'd probably prefer.
Our industry does catch a lot of bad reps, and that has a lot to do with things like this. I've never claimed to be a role model or some saint. I definitely do not have the ethics and morals most people think I do. I am very drawn to the dark side of advertising and marketing. But I have this thing called COMMON SENSE, and I also learned the hard way, many times, that you CANNOT by any means let your greed factor or warnings like this one get the best of you. Sometimes we only learn by learning something the hard way, and even then it can take one or two times more than we'd like. But when it comes down to it, I do not touch anything that is illegal (even the slightest shred of a chance to land myself in jail) or anything that will harm someone else (physically). Those are my rules and since I've stuck to it, I've been able to distance myself away and literally avoid tons of shit that I've unfortunately seen many friends get sued or locked up over. But I've always sent out warnings, and this time is no different.
Do not for any moment think that I did this for my health or for attention.
Damn right I did it for attention. To get all of YOUR attention to understand that this is your first and only warning. If you think you're smarter, slicker, or untouchable, goodluck to ya, I'm sure your lawyers love people like you.
For you networks reading this... crack down. All of you. Now. I don't care if the advertisers won't find out, or if they say it's okay. Clean your act up.
For you affiliates reading this... Hang up your CL spam tools, go outside and do something productive.
For everyone else... you shouldn't be on Craigslist looking for sex. So go join a porn site or something.
Alright, I'm done.
