Thursday, July 17, 2003
California-based holding company Acacia Research said Wednesday that it won a preliminary court ruling in favor of broad patent claims covering virtually all streaming media transmissions.
The company has won a preliminary injunction against five adult entertainment Web sites, barring them from using on-demand digital video or audio online, or providing advertising links to any other such sites.
Read more.....
Video on demand has been a central feature of the adult industry for years now, this is a terrible blow to the industry.
Posted by inthestars @ 11:12 PM PST [Link]
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Here's what happened to one adult website designer who thought PayPal would allow him to accept payments for designing adult oriented website:
'Well after many conversations with paypal regarding whether or not I was safe to process adult design work , and being reassured I was within the regulations , Pay pal has now closed my account and seized all funds that were inside , after contacting them this time , I am told that ADULT anything is not in regulations .. and this is a modification of the original plans .
If your designing adult and accepting paypal , get ready .. they're gonna close your account too ...'
Posted by inthestars @ 01:27 PM PST [Link]
So the latest news is that Epoch is going to drop any Sponsored Merchant that also processes with iBill. Apparently because 2 big companies that process with them are out of compliance with visa regs in their processing with iBill.
In fact it sounds like they want to discourage cascading processors altogether.
The argument seems to be that because Visa is shifting from monitoring compliance on a per IPSP basis they are going to start monitoring each sponsored merchant based upon all his processing. Which apparently means that a Sponsored Merchant going out of compliance at one IPSP can affect the other IPSPs own compliance.
Seems like it could be very bad news for iBill.
Posted by inthestars @ 01:25 PM PST [Link]
Overture ripped off Jact, a Canadian adult webmaster, for $12,000 and here's how:
I added the automatically refill account feature after having consistant traffic levels for 2 months, I figured I'd stick with the $75/day. Suddenly in 48 hours it burned $12,000 off my CC and maxxed out my credit card. The traffic was pure water, I don't know what the fuck they did but I think I got 3 signups out of it. Fucking pissed me off like you wouldn't believe! They made the charges $50 at a time, 240 charges in 48 hours. My issuing bank wouldn't let me chargeback because I'd been using them for 2 months which established that I was an ongoing customer.
Posted by inthestars @ 11:27 AM PST [Link]
The boys at Purityscan.com ripped off this hardworking webmaster:
Today I was expecting to get a check from UCBILL.COM/PURITY SCAN of the approx. amount of $2200. I open the envelope to find out that only $850 was paid out to me. When i emailed Purity Scan about this issue, this is the response i received from Purity Scan Steve (The guy in charge of ucbill):
"purityscansteve (11:15 AM) :
Hey Paul, the reason your check was for less is because we are no longer paying for double-installs. Only unique installs are counted now. This in now reflected on your earnings page, as of July 1st. Starting in August, we will be raising our rates to 17 cents to reward our webmasters for generating unique installs"
The email that was sent to me said:
"Paul,
Please see the ICQ message that we sent. Only 35% of your installs were unique, and therefore you were only paid for 35% of your earnings. If you have any further questions, please let us know."
I can't even explain how mad I am right now at this company. Just as I thought there was going to be some good news hearing that the company is raising rates weeks ago....we are all getting FUCKED OVER.
That means that the amount of $2200 i earned in June would come out to the same amount as the check i received in the mail today. UCBILL didn't warn us ahead of time so that webmasters who promote them would have a chance to find another sponsor. That means all webmasters will get fucked over for their $ for 2 months without warning.
First off......the changes they made did not reflect in May, June, or july stats and no email warning was sent out to webmasters about the change ahead of time. Everyone is expecting the amount that is displayed on their stats page so basically they stole our traffic because they did not tell us of the changes and therefore we did not have a chance to find a different sponsors .
I am considering looking into filing a lawsuit against them with other webmasters who got cheated with UCBILL. Anyone who can comment on this issue, please post.
paulk
Posted by inthestars @ 10:38 AM PST [Link]
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
This webmaster wants a buyer for his movie post:
I have a movie post site for sale if anyone is interested. This is a great offer to anyone who wants to start a MGP, the site average about 30-40k of traffic per day with 10k Bookmark. I'm selling the site because i'm in a bit of a financial stump, i'm willing to let the site go for a really good price (no more than 2k) It's a great deal if anyone is interested.
icq - 332790881
Posted by inthestars @ 04:43 PM PST [Link]
Much heralded third party offshore processor, Yambo.biz is out of business, see the following email sent out to affiliates:
We regret to inform you that Yambo Financials Ltd. (www.yambo.biz), despite our efforts, will have no choice but to stop processing all credit card transactions on Thursday, July 10, 2003. We were recently informed by our european bank (one of the largest banks in Europe and one of the last that was willing to work with Aggregators and \"IPSP's\") that the Aggregators and IPSP's they work with are being closed due to the pressure and administrative requirements passed down byVisa/MC. By losing this merchant relationship, we have no practical and technical way to maintain our current client database. We are sorry for all invconveniences this may or may have caused to your business and want to thank you for doing business with our company.
--
Risk Department
Yambo Financials Ltd.
support@yambo.biz
Posted by inthestars @ 02:09 PM PST [Link]
This is from their message board:
In order to improve the quality of the AC Gold program and increase customer satisfaction, we will be making some significant changes to the requirements for new Gold submissions.
These changes will go into effect Monday, July 21, 2003. They will NOT be retroactive at the moment, so your old sites are safe. The changes are as follows:
Minimum # of images/videos
For image-only sites, 1000 images minimum.
For video sites, either a minimum of:
a) 100 images plus 30 minutes of video broken into 4 or more segments.
or
b) 100 images plus 60 minutes of video broken into 3 or fewer pieces.
Reciprocal links
All sites' members' areas must have a link back to the appropriate Gold link list category.
Other
New sites will be listed as "New" for 15 days after activation.
There are provisions in the new ASR to prevent content overuse. To qualify for Gold, content must either be exclusive or must come from a list of content providers who have been approved by the company and agreed to not oversell their content. Content providers who wish to be included in this list should email edison@adultcheck.com.
An ASR PDF must be faxed back for every site submission
The new ASR (which will become effective July 21) is available for review at:
http://links.adultcheck.com/legal/ASR_NewGold.pdf
Posted by inthestars @ 01:40 PM PST [Link]
Sunday, July 13, 2003
Ever wondered how your adult website looks in different size screens? Find out what surfers might be seeing on their 600 by 800 or 480 by 600 screens at Anybrowser.com.
Posted by inthestars @ 07:25 PM PST [Link]
Welcome to Smut Peddler Blog. This blog scours adult webmaster message boards and newsletters to bring adult webmasters the latest news. I'll also be featuring tools that can assist adult webmasters with making more money!
Posted by inthestars @ 05:22 PM PST [Link]
