Illinois Attorney General Says No More B.S,

Word on the street is that Big-G is next in line for the 'Lawsuit Train'... all aboard!!!

Biz op's using big-G's name/trademarks/logos/etc. illegally, or even affiliates promoting these should be very aware that they are breaking the law.

What a douche. That attorney c*** s***** makes it sound like all affiliate marketers are funneling people into online scams.

He is mixing together apples, oranges, bad apples and big pink floppy dildos.

He has no clue what he is talking about. A total blow hard moron who read the cover of a book and has yet to bother to read the actual pages of the book.

The attorney general of Illinois can KISS my ass! Pucker up you moron.

Just recieved this in my email from Market health[formerly joe bucks].Hope i can copy and paste with out me going down.
QUOTE From Market Health:
* The Oprah Law Suit Chatter: There is a ton of press with regards to Oprah filing a complaint against affiliates. What should you be doing? Simple Remove any content that is using any of Harpo Inc. assets, which include Oprah, Rachel Ray, and Dr. Oz. In addition, our legal team has advised us that it OK to mention a news report but not to use their logos. For example, if an ingredient was featured on Fox News, you can say \"Featured on Fox News\" but do not use the Fox News Logo.[quote/]

Seriously Folks,

You need to be VERY CAREFUL with your online ventures... The FTC and big corporations are getting together and cracking down.

This news is just the tip of the iceberg/****-storm that is coming.

Get rid of your Flogs, Farticles, crappy offers that clearly violate Trademark laws, or ANY LAW, etc.

They are watching you... [you]

This is targeting SCAMMERS not internet marketers.

If you are legit then there's no worries :rolleyes:

I don't see what the big deal about this is. It's illegal to violate a trademark and so is libel - it always has been. What I see is people suing people for violating standing laws. Maybe Ophrah doesn't want people thinking she's endorsing bull crap. So what.
Trademark violation has always been illegal - that's why there ARE trademarks. As soon as you get your name close enough to someone's trademark that customers can be fooled that some scam is actually YOUR scam, you are breaking the law.
That's not new laws going into effect - that's people suing when their trademarks have been violated or when they feel they have been portrayed as endorsing something they don't.

Give an example:
I was looking at google not too long ago because I had heard of google cash and thought it was a telecommuting job from google. They didn't have anything about it in their job listings. So later I get this spam about make money WITH google so I went to the site to see if I recognized the owner's name.......it tells all about how much money you can make - free program, yadda yadda, just a buck ninety something. It's flashing all over about "As seen on Oprah", etc - with logos, the sign of actual endorsement. At the bottom of the page in REAL SMALL print is that they are not connected with google in any way. I almost had to squint to see it. So I go to the TOS and there it is buried in a lot of BS - 70 bucks a month after the first month.
Now I realize that people should be doing their due dilligence and it didn't take me long to find what I was looking for......but how many people just starting out are trapped by that one? It really SOUNDS like it is a google production - and the "as seen on" looks like actual endoresments. The whole site is built to mislead and deceive. There is no way around it.....they are FOOLING people into signing up.

So as far as the laws as they stand - I would call it nice justice to see Google sue the bejeebers out of that site. However - It would be a bad day to see new laws coming down the pikes. We shouldn't have to babysit people who can read a website well enough to sign up for whatever they are doling out. If they refuse to do some due dilligence, why should we all have to put up with Mommy Gov stepping in with the freakin' potty wipes and baby powder. It's usually personal greed that gets them into their little problems with scams anyway. When it takes less than 5 minutes of reading to figure out the site isn't what they make it appear to be, why should we have a law to protect anyone idiotic enough to sign up for it?

It's pretty well known that our government doesn't stop grabbing once it grabs the first bite it's going to try to eat the whole pie - if we let them start taking pieces of IM out, it won't be too long before we have to have one of them paid to get to decide who can't put a site up and for what reasons, which could get excessively arbitrary (are they pushing gun control and you are with the ARA?) and they might also decide not only do we need their approval but also have pay registration fees to THEM to put our site up.

Until I see them targeting sites for things that aren't some very old standing laws, though, I'm not going to worry much about it.

The degree of self-delusion amongst those who practice
the dark arts of CPA is STAGGERING - largely because
the amount of money turned over is equally eye-popping.

There are many legitimate reasons to gripe about the
confounding and often random enforcement of deceptive
trade practices on both the state and federal level...

...but this is not one of them.

To those that fault the AG in this particular action - WAKE UP.

To those that defend the right to employ flagrantly fraudulent
and deceptive methods in your core business...

You know the reasons why you're doing what you're doing.

"It works..."

Fair enough... fraud IS often extremely effective.

Soon (and with luck only through the misfortune of others),
you are going to learn about the risks and the consequences
of these strategies. The unforeseen cost. The long-term pain
from that short-term gain.

You've mastered media buys, CPM mail drops, flogs,
and fake celebrity endorsements.

You've learned to create incredibly effective landing
pages and finely-tuned PPC campaigns.

Soon, you're going to learn about "subpoenas", "discovery",
and "responsive documents".

Next, you'll discover the joys of "TRO", "disgorgement"
and "restitution".

There's a whole new world for you to experience...
and it's coming sooner than later to an Internet
near you.

IME, the IL AG under Lisa Madigan is arguably one of
the best run AG's in the country. They are fair and
responsive to good faith efforts by merchants to resolve
disputes with consumers and know the difference between
real patterns of misconduct and a large volume of business.
There are other states that are not nearly as professional
and impartial (ever dealt with the NC AG?).

Fools that bray about never getting caught clearly have
zero understanding of the machinations of "justice" in
this country.

Hate to break it to you hotshots but if you've been paid,
you're "in the machine".

If you've been paid A LOT, you should seriously consider
a legal review of your little empire's legal compliance.
It could literally save your ass.

However, if the mere thought of that makes you uncomfortable,
you've got serious liabilities in your business that need to be
addressed as of yesterday.

There could be a grand jury this very week listening to
a federal prosecutor discuss the subpoena of your favorite
network's bank records... and neither they nor we'd ever
know about it until the day of the "door knock".

I've had this discussion here several times before...
some applaud, some argue, others accuse me of being
"inexperienced" LOL...

One of these days I'll share some stories that'll make
your hair curl.

For now, just take my advice... be smarter than this
about what you're doing.

Brian

I've been reading about this for a couple of days now. I've asked a few networks why they're not policing the advertisers they promote more closely and, more importantly, why they're pushing affiliates to promote such offers as "Google Money Tree" and its ilk.

If the network isn't going to do their job, why do I need them? Frankly I'm appalled by some of the "advice" I've gotten from AMs regarding promoting certain berryz and biz op crap.

I really like most of the AMs I work with, and I don't promote sketchy crap, but it makes me wonder about the dearth of disclosure and warning from the networks as these suits are being filed and as networks are being subpoenaed.

I'm glad most people are "getting it"... for those of you who don't... best of luck to ya!

By the way, the Illinois attorney general is aan attractive woman who is very effective and is not your typical cabbagehead politician. She is going after the overhyped crap being marketed and that's a good thing (unless you are marketing overhyped crap I guess).This field needs a good **** berry flush anyway.

Just wondering what country's the FFC and this lady can actually prosocute?

Now i don't currently promote any hyped crap but there is a chance that you promote a crap product without realizing it (ive done it in the past) but then before you realize you get a phone call or whatever! I don't want this to happen!

Now most of the time it is obvious but with new products on the market its kinda hard!

Plus with the changes over at azoogle that means 1000's of articles if not more are going to need changing with the whole 'free' thing not being allowed if its only a free trial! Or do you think they just mean the actual website??

So many questions... we need a legal aid in the forums to come and view all this and give us the facts!

Tom Brite

SPAM is a trademark! Hormel probably can't really claim it anymore! XEROX is a trademark! Xerox probably can't really claim it anymore! WHY!?!?!? Because they have entered generic household speach! IANAL, and maybe kindsvater can clarify, but, as I understand it, a trademark holder has to DEFEND their trademark! Failure to do so can cause them to meet the same fate. And Oprah only has 3 things going for her. technically, TWO of those can be adversly affected by appearing to support such businesses.

She says something nice about the **** fruit, and everyone using **** in their products starts claiming she approves their product. That is just STUPID, MISLEADING, ILLEGAL! They COULD simply embed, IN THEIR COPY, that oprah said that a key part of their product was good, and THAT might be legal!

Steve

Class, the word for today is "irony"...

When I read the original post, the first thought that came to mind was "is she up for election next year?" Ho, hum, yet another grandstanding politician.

Then I read the actual news release, and find out that the OP picked out the most incendiary quote from the whole piece.

Kind of like Oprah mentioning an ingredient in a supplement during a segment of her show, and suddenly the ads proclaim she endorsed a specific product.

The AG is right to go after illegal activity. That's kind of the definition of the job, isn't it?

I agree with the actions of the AG in Illinois and NY, and as former head of a network, I can also tell you that the FTC crackdown that happened on July 1st is only the first wave in a new round of compliance wars aimed squarely at the Biz Opp and Health verticals.

For too long (and I have been doing this for 12+ years) there has been a proliferation of crap when it comes to offers. How can anyone make a decision based on less than 50 words of copy and obtuse Terms & Conditions. You can't, and these are the campaigns that all networks should be self policing themselves. I can tell you that there are several top networks, Azoogle and ClickBooth included, that take great pains to put campaign through compliance reviews. They are not the norm.

As much as overly aggressive affiliates are to blame, networks also need to shoulder trhe responsibility of not putting these offers in front of publishers. The problem is, faked endorsements, celebrity pics and patently false testimonials actually do outperform a long format sales page or even a factually based sales page. Why? The only thing I can come up with is that these are the same people who buy carloads of Sham Wow's and Snuggie's. They are not rocket scientists, nor even good shoppers.

Networks, if they want this segment of online advertising to survive and attract larger advertisers, need to collectively promote only compliant campaigns - no matter how much an advertiser is willing to pre-pay.

In order to be compliant, you should look for the items Azoogle (thanks Marc P.) mentioned above, for sure, but here are a few other tips affiliates can use to judge if an offer is compliant.

- Does the site explain any continuity/subscription charges above where the "action" on the page is. This could be a button, a form, or even a cart (in the case of an all-in-1 page format), whatever the "action" the end user is supposed to take on the page. If the page does not explain that after the initial Risk Free Trial, they will be charged X for whatever it is they are buying, then stay away. This is what the FTC will be looking for next.

- Does the site have a Privacy Policy, and does it make sense?

- Does the site have an Earning Disclaimer on the page, not in a link.

- Does the site have a Terms & Conditions that have an 800# to reach Customer Service. Also, does the T & C clearly spell out how to receive a refund or how to opt out of the Risk Free Trial? I suggest calling the number and see what happens, possibly ask the operator how many refunds they issued that day.

- If the campaign is a Risk Free Trial, does the site clearly disclose directly near the word FREE what the S/H fees are? Is it in typeface greater than 9 pica?

- If you are truly serious, order the product and see for yourself what the ordering experience is, and then attempt to return it.

- Never promote an offer that tells you that the $1 they are charging the consumer is going to be donated to charity and that this makes the offer totally free to the consumer. They are only using the transaction to get consumer's information, as well as check to see if the card has money on it so they can rebill it.

- Never promote an offer that is using any images of celebrities unless their name is on the product itself. Oprah does not endorse any particular brand of **** berry. And the use of News Network logo's is also a tip off that you may want to not promote this. In addition, if you see McAfee or HackerSafe badges, click on them, if they are not linked or unclickable they are there to deceive the consumer.

- Lastly, make sure you do a search for the advertiser's legal name (should be disclosed in the T & C) and add in the words "sam", "fraud" or "spam". You will also want to search the BBB to see if there are any unresolved compaints against the advertiser.

These are all things networks should police, in my opinion. I know I did at Offeratti, but we had a different approach to being a network. I wish I could say that for all networks.

I applaud these actions by state's AG's, deceptive practices hurts everyone in our niche. If we do not police ourselves it will be done for us. And if you think the government isn't watching, well I suggest you visit www.ftc.gov and peruse the guidelines they have for advertisers of Health products or Business Opportunity. You may think you can never promote another product again!

OK, Sorry but I've just got to ask. What about the Johnny Dep pirate that is being used right now by you know who. Nothing against the product, I just see that Johnny Dep Pirate and wonder, How can they do that?

George Wright