SuperGreen – SuperGreenhosting.com -7th EIG host to become FTC compliant?

Here is another almost exact copy of 6 other blog posts, Supergreen joins the list. This is another host that I have never done a review on.  Back with one of my posts on Endurance International Group, someone commented on my blog telling me that supergreen was an EIG Host.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/endurance-international-group-inc.html

I did not get a lot of details about supergreen, just bread crumbs.  Up til now I had little legitimate details linking this host to EIG,  Unless in the unlikely event that Supergreen copied the EIG mail outs.

SuperGreen is  added onto the list of Endurance International Group hosts to send out FTC compliance notices to their affiliates.  If you read some of my previous posts you will see that just like fatcow.com and ipage.com they used the same exact notice.   I will continue to do a post for each notice I recieve from Endurance International Group.  This is my first post on SuperGreen, I have to say that it does not have the same feel as many of the Endurance International Group sites, not to mention I don’t really recall seeing it on any review sites.   I do know that they are with cj.com (Commission Junction). The first email about Federal Trade Commission guidelines was sent to Just Host affiliates.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/just-host.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipower-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/fatcow-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipage-com.html

StartLogic.com – Fifth of the EIG hosts to ask affiliates to comply with the FTC


https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipowerweb-com.html 

A copy of the Email from supergreen – supergreenhosting.com

Dear SuperGreen Affiliate,As you may know, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has strict guidelines that relate to affiliates who offer reviews, rankings, endorsements and testimonials; and we require all affiliates of our CJ program to comply with these requirements.To be compliant with the FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, SuperGreen expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and SuperGreen anytime you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services.WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOUIf you provide reviews, rankings, endorsements or testimonials about a service for which you receive commissions from us, you must clearly disclose the fact that you receive such compensation in a clear and prominent place–that is close to your endorsement.The FTC takes the Endorsement guidelines seriously and has started to enforce them for both content providers like yourself and advertisers like SuperGreen.As an advertiser, SuperGreen will monitor affiliate sites to be sure our services are represented appropriately. Failure to comply with the endorsement guidelines could result in removal from our affiliate program and the cancellation of commissions.TIPS FOR MAKING SURE YOUR SITE IS COMPLIANT

To make it easier for you, we’ve pulled together information, based on a recent FTC enforcement case, to illustrate ways you can disclose a material connection between you and your advertisers. Take a few minutes to review this summary at:

SuperGreen Affiliate Disclosure Requirements and Examples

The FTC also offers a variety of resources to help make it easier for you to comply with the guidelines, including:

Please note: These links are intended to provide guidance only. If you provide endorsements of some type, you should obtain legal advice on how the FTC rules apply to you.

Please take steps immediately to make sure your site is in compliance with these guidelines. Several of our leading affiliates have already posted their disclosures, and they continue to enjoy great success.

Best wishes,

The SuperGreen Affiliate Team

So what does this email from supergreen – supergreenhosting.com mean?

In short if your a review site, and you don’t disclose that you created your site for the purpose of making money they will remove you from the affiliate program.  Here are the steps they recommend to be in compliance with the FTC.

  1. Frequent: Disclosures must be available on any page that has an endorsement.
  2. Clear: Language must be easy to understand; don’t attempt to hide the fact that it’s a disclosure.
  3. Conspicuous: Place your disclosure close to your endorsement or review. Differentiate the disclosure’s font treatment from the rest of your site.
  4. Require no action: The user shouldn’t need to click, hover or scroll to locate or understand the nature of your disclosure.

If SuperGreen.com sticks with this, I have to commend them on doing things ethically.  I hope they did not start doing this because the FTC contacted them first.  I will be sure to contact them should I find any violators.

Be warned if you run a so called top review site, and you have Supergreen.

Unlimitedgb.com – Ignoring my call to action

To start with, I want to make it clear I did not go looking for issues with Unlimitedgb.com, they came to me. They choose to create fake reviews on my site.   Which was for the purpose of bringing increasing their back links and search engine viability. I can’t say if they had planned on purpose to post on my site, or if they targeted any forum or blog with hosting as a topic.   But I can tell you like many other sites that post any negative feed back, they are ready to try and drown out the negative with fake positives.  Which you can see at my first post:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/scams-to-avoid/unlimitedgb.html

For which they choose to create feed back, in most cases not giving out domains.  In one case two different endorsements came from the same ip.

Last week the CEO decided to contact me, not to fix things but to get me to remove my page.

Email exchange with Unlimitedgb.com

Per usual red text is who is responding to me.

Blue text is me.

From:
Sanson Dsilva
[email protected]Message:

Dear Benjamin,

I am the CEO and the Managing Director of UnlimitedGB.com. Its been 2
years since I have started unlimitedgb.com and its a budding hosting
company. During the start of unlimitedgb.com we outsourced some seo
work to a seo firm “GK Media Soft” in coimbatore, India and what they
did is to generate back links they did blog commenting on various
forums including yours.. I swear on my son this was not an intentional
commenting blast on your blogs and during that time due to a shortage
in manpower we were giving support to customers on live chat only
during the day times in India, and so that is the reason when you came
to our website the chat was offline. During that time we had no more
than 800 hosted domains on our servers. ALL THIS IS IN THE PAST….But Now Benjamin, Please As a Brother I am requesting you, Please
Remove this post from your website.

http://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/scams-to-avoid/unlimitedgb.html
1. Now!
You can verify that we have completely stopped Blog
Commenting.
2. We Provide True 24/7 Support, Please check this for your self..Benjamin I read in you blog that you also have a hosting company and
in a similar situation some one is writing wrong about your website
and you decide and correct your mistakes, and then your existing
customers and new customers sees on a blog that you are bad and
abandons your website and services, But you are not like that right
now…..It Hurts Benjamin, It is really pricking HARD.When you wrote this blog I just had 800 hosted domains and now we have
around 7000 hosted domains and If any of my existing and satisfied
customers just go to google and search for “UNLIMITEDGB” and your page
is in the second position “Unlimitedgb.com – A Scam to Avoid!!! |
Hosting Reviews Exposed”I understand that your blog is monetizing my traffic to earn through
AdSense. I am ready to pay you a compensation for that Please give my
your PayPal ID and I will send you a compensation that you request..to
remove this post
http://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/scams-to-avoid/unlimitedgb.html

You could verify the below two points on my website before you could
decide..

1. Now! You can verify that we have completely stopped Blog
Commenting.
2. We Provide True 24/7 Support, Please check this for your self..

Thank you for your understanding and generosity in this regard.

Best regards,

Sanson D’silva
Managing Director
Interweb iTech (India) Private Limited.

Before I responded I thought I would make it clear before hand I was not going to be paid / bribed to remove a post.

I had no intention of taking any money to remove my post.  But I was curious to see how much he would offer.

I am not saying I want compensation, I am saying what do you mean by that?

I honestly did not expect a reply.  I thought maybe, just maybe he was watching my twitter feed.  As some companies do.   But he did skip over the part of my contact form that states “If your a host that is contacting me about one of my posts I will post any and all emails directly to the blog post associated to your contact.“.

Dear Benjamin,
I have no other choice this post http://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/scams-to-avoid/unlimitedgb.html
is killing a good company that is growing. Please help I am ready to pay any thing you require.

>I understand that your blog is monetizing my traffic to earn through

>AdSense. I am ready to pay you a compensation for that Please give me

>your PayPal ID and I will send you a compensation that you request..t

Thanks and best regards,

Sanson D’silva
Managing Director
Interweb iTech (India) Private Limited.

My curiosity had reached its limit, I made a quick post hoping to get him to engage him in dealing with his customers problems.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/redemption/unlimitedgb-com.html

Hello Sanson,


If you had read my twitter feed before you sent you response, you would have noticed I am not going to take a bribe.
Instead I offer you redemption:

I look forward to dealing with you publicly to solve your issues.

Regards,

Benjamin

Of coarse after three days, Sanson choose not to respond to me.  Never mind I offered to provide free mediation with prior customers.

After I did the last post on unlimitedgb.com I thought I would try the chat out.  Turns out this is the screen I got most of the time:

 

By Monday I sent a response:

Hello Sanson,


I had hoped that you would work with me to turn your company around.
Think about it, you have a pretty bad rap going around the internet,  what I offer is better then having a single page removed.  I offer you a chance to get this cleaned up and deal with your customers.

If you don’t want to work with me then I will make a finale post with the email you sent through my forum that warned you that I will post your email.

Regards,

Benjamin

12 hours later and on my 18th random attempt I finale got a hold of a tech named James.  I seem to have misplaced the chat. In short I asked to speak with Sanson.  He got back to me quickly right after.

Dear Benjamin

>what I offer is better then having a single page removed.

I have over 7000+ customers & 1200+ Resellers and 1% of my customers are unhappy. And to all that 1% unhappy customers I have either refunded the money or they are no longer using my service. So what is the point in communicating with them. As I have mentioned in my previous mail. your forum post is confusing my 99% of happy customers.In this case I better have a single page removed & lead the way by satisfying my 99% happy customers..

>If you don’t want to work with me then I will make a finale post with the email you sent through my forum that warned you that I will post your email.

Please have some basic ethics, my communication with you is 1 to 1 and not meant to be posted on a public forum.

Thanks and best regards,Sanson D’silva
Managing Director
Interweb iTech (India) Private Limited.

Wait!!!!!  He is telling me to be ethical?????

A Finale Email to UnlimitedGB

Hello Sanson,

“Please have some basic ethics“
 
Please don’t try to tell me how to be ethical.  You spammed my blog, posted fake positive reviews, and last but defiantly by far not least you tried to bribe me. Your not exactly on a list of people that have a right to preach to anyone about ethics.  Or do you want to see what people have to say when they see your email? Your first mistake when dealing with me was thinking this was about money.
 
After finally being able to deal with the chat on your company, and trust me I tried 18 random times since your first email to confirm you had live 24/7 chat support (I was going to give it 20 chances).  When I finale got on chat with my last try, I was not impressed.  A lot of what I see in complaints regarding support rang true, as my responses with “James”, were extremely slow. 
As for this 1%, I don’t know if you have 7,000 customers.  If its true, at less then 2 years old that is a impressive number.  Granted I suspect you started up in 2010, despite what your domain whois says (Creation Date: 28-sep-2009)  But over more then a year now of looking at hosts.  I can say that you have a lot of reviews for someone with 7,000 reviews, you have a lot of negative feed back.
 
 
I have to say most of the positive feed back is fake. It does not have the feel of a happy customers. Not to mention your company tried to create fake positive reviews on my site, which would not stop you from doing this elsewhere.
 
Example:
 
Gopala Krishnan ( gkmediasoft@g… )
October 4, 2010
Time Hosted: 2 to 3 years
 
You need to stop with the fake feed back.  You need to deal with the negative feed back, instead of trying to bury it as I have clearly demonstrated it has ways of going above the positive. I have offered to help you deal with your customers complaints as well as altering my blog post.  You can either work with me, a person who has 11 years of experience, or you can continue to do the same thing. 

Regards,

Benjamin

I doubt that there will be any more response from Sanson

There is a reason I stated that I don’t think the site was active since 2009, part of what drew my interest was a review that said they had been hosting with unlimitedgb for more then 2 years.  Which made me look at the whois for their domain.  The creation Date is 28-sep-2009.  Then there is this chart from Alexa.

 

I think part of what he told me was true, even though he switched 7,000 domains to 7,000 customers. Never mind number of domains does not mean amount of customers.

“When you wrote this blog I just had 800 hosted domains and now we have around 7000 hosted domains”

This response makes me think that he lied about being 2 years old.  After all 900% increase in a period under 8 months. Where as it took them 15 months  to get 800 domains.   But another thing that makes me think they started back in October 2010 is that most of the comment spam began around that time.  Websites like webhostingstuff.com did not start tracking uptime until around this time http://www.webhostingstuff.com/uptime/UnlimitedGB.html, like the one comment I mentioned:

Gopala Krishnan ( gkmediasoft@g… )
October 4, 2010
Time Hosted: 2 to 3 years

From this point forward if you have a complaint about unlimitedgb I want your support tickets, emails, as well as chat sessions.

Unlimitedgb.com is more then welcome to respond to these complaints, but they are not welcome to post fake positive feedback.

Droa.com – Domain Registry of America Still Sending Mail Outs

Back in June Droa.com sent me another renewal notice.  While this has nothing to do with reviews, it has to do with unethical business practices.  This is a company that demonstrates that even if there were no affiliate programs, a way will be found to get paid rather they offer a legit product or not.   In this case they rely on you not knowing who your domain register is or perhaps not knowing how much a domain costs.  They engage in a process called domain slamming.  On the wiki page for Droa, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DROA is the following:

“Domain slamming (also known as unauthorized transfers or domain name registration scams) is a scam in which the offending domain name registrar attempts to trick domain owners into switching from their existing registrar to theirs, under the pretense that the customer is simply renewing their subscription to their current registrar. The term derives from telephone slamming.”

This is how they start the letter they sent me through the postal service:

“As a courtesy to domain holders we are sending you this notification of the the domain name registrations that due to expire in the next few months. “

In a not so tell tale way they tell you that they are not your domain register if you read further.  They don’t come forward and directly say that you are not their customer.  Some how “This notice is not a bill” is supposed let you know that your not a customer.  Some of my former customers,  friends and family did not bother to read that detail and they hurried and signed the renew notice, as they were more concerned about losing their domain then seeing if the notice was legit.  After all it mentioned their name and domain, so it had to be legit right?  They may not even had read this part: “Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity making it difficult for your customers and friends to locate you on the web.” .  Of coarse they are hoping you read that part, panic and send them a check.

Long before my firsts post on Domain Registry of America (https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/scams-to-avoid/domain-registry-of-america.html) and long before I even Hosting-reviews-exposed.com was started,  I had my eye on this company.  When I got my first notice, I instantly knew something was up.   After all I owned my own domain registry company and still do, what it has never done is send out paper notices.   Domains being 9.99, and a $2.50 profit I really did not want to pay for .40 notice to be sent out.  Regrettable I did what so many other people should do and threw it into the recycling bin.  Because today it would be nice to compare a letter from 2002 to present day.  I don’t remember them disclosing that they were not your domain register.   Now they do, even if they do it in a round about was

A reason to not trust DROA.com

The FTC has this on DROA.com

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/12/domainreg.shtm

“According to the FTC, the company told consumers that their domain registrations were expiring, leading many consumers unwittingly to switch their domain name registrar. The company also allegedly did not disclose that it would charge a processing fee to consumers if their transfer request was not competed – for any reason – and failed to provide consumers refunds in a timely manner.”

Yeah I know this was back in 2003, so let us see what the BBB has this to say about DROA.com

http://www.bbb.org/upstate-new-york/business-reviews/internet-services/domain-registry-of-america-in-buffalo-ny-17000531/

“The BBB file contains a pattern of complaints from consumers who report that the company’s mailing is misleading. Consumers state that they have received notices from Domain Registry of America that appear to be invoices for renewal of their internet domain name. The company claims that their marketing materials clearly state that ‘Domain name holders are not obligated to renew their domain name with their current registrar or the Domain Registry of America…. This notice is not a bill.”

Regardless of the statement Domains Registry of America gave to the BBB, they have a F rating.

This is a current record with the BBB.

It takes alot for me to say a company is a scam.  The first bad sign was this notice was not from my own personal domain register which does not send out snail mail.  The other as you can see from the scans is the billing notice.  On the back is print that I don’t think the average person could read.  Even I have hard time,  keep in mind on my kindle I have the print as small as possible.  Is an extra page really too much to pay to make sure some one can read the Registration Agreement?   One that in far larger letters lets you know they are not affiliated with the U.S. government.  I honestly do not think its so much the cost, but the fact a extra page or two would make people actually check the bill out further.

 The snail mail from Droa.com / Domain Registry of America domain slamming.

 

DROA is a reseller for eNom

Looking through the hard to read fine print one thing sticks out to me

eNom, Inc., BRANDON GRAY INTERNET SERVICES INC. (dba “NameJuice.com:), and DROA.

Enom is the company droa is reselling for much like Wild West Domains/ Godaddy.com.   Depending on which level of reseller account you pick, which I am assuming they picked the one that lets them buy domains for $8.50 a year.

The alias of DROA

According to icannwikki: http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Brandon_Gray_Internet_Services_Inc.

 

Brandon Gray Internet Services Inc.

Namejuice.com

Domain Registry of America

Domain Renewal Group

Domain Registry of Australia

Domain Registry of Canada

Domain Registry of Europe

Internet Registry of Canada

Liberty Names of America

Registration Services Inc.

Yellow Business.ca

Internet Corporation Listing Service

Are you unsure if your a customer of DROA?

I recommend going to http://www.internic.net/whois.html

Click on register to see who your register is.

Where to send complaints about DROA

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/12/domainreg.shtm

http://www.enom.com/help/abusepolicy.aspx

http://reports.internic.net/cgi/registrars/problem-report.cgi

Do you really need to pay $35.00 for a domain, well don’t pick DROA

I don’t recommend paying more then $15 for a .com, ,net, .org.  But if you really have to pay $35.00 then atleast go with a reputable company such as Network Soultions.  Yes that is an affilate link submitted below, and I get paid a commision if you use that link to order a domain.   Generally I would tell people to not pick Network Solutions due to is higher then average price.  But I would rather see people go to Network Solutions over DROA any day if they just have to pay $35 a year.

 

This is not my first post on droa and it will not be my last until they either reform or close up shop.  Per my lat post on Domain Registry of America, I found they operate out of Europe and Canada as well. Do you have a letter from other alias of DROA?

Ipowerweb.com – Sixth host of EIG – CJ.com affiliates to Seek Compliance with FTC

Here is another almost exact copy of 5 other blog posts, Ipowerweb.com joins the list. Ipowerweb.com is  added onto the list of Endurance International Group hosts to send out FTC compliance notices to their affiliates.  If you read some of my previous posts you will see that just like fatcow.com and ipage.com they used the same exact notice.   I will continue to do a post for each notice I recieve from Endurance International Group.  This is my first post on Ipowerweb.com, I have to say that it does not have the same feel as many of the Endurance International Group sites, not to mention I don’t really recall seeing it on any review sites.   I do know that they are with cj.com (Commission Junction). The first email about Federal Trade Commission guidelines was sent to Just Host affiliates.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/just-host.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipower-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/fatcow-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipage-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/startlogic-com.html 

A copy of the Email from Ipowerweb.com

Dear iPowerWeb Affiliate,
As you may know, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has strict guidelines that relate to affiliates who offer reviews, rankings, endorsements and testimonials; and we require all affiliates of our CJ program to comply with these requirements.To be compliant with the FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, iPowerWeb expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and iPowerWeb anytime you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services.View more information about iPowerWeb’s strict adherence to the FTC Endorsement Requirement.WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

If you provide reviews, rankings, endorsements or testimonials about a service for which you receive commissions from us, you must clearly disclose the fact that you receive such compensation in a clear and prominent place–that is close to your endorsement.

The FTC takes the Endorsement guidelines seriously and has started to enforce them for both content providers like yourself and advertisers like iPowerWeb.

As an advertiser, iPowerWeb will monitor affiliate sites to be sure our services are represented appropriately. Failure to comply with the endorsement guidelines could result in removal from our affiliate program and the cancellation of commissions.

TIPS FOR MAKING SURE YOUR SITE IS COMPLIANT

To make it easier for you, we’ve pulled together information, based on a recent FTC enforcement case, to illustrate ways you can disclose a material connection between you and your advertisers. Take a few minutes to review this summary at:

iPowerWeb Affiliate Disclosure Requirements and Examples

The FTC also offers a variety of resources to help make it easier for you to comply with the guidelines, including:

Please note: These links are intended to provide guidance only. If you provide endorsements of some type, you should obtain legal advice on how the FTC rules apply to you.

Please take steps immediately to make sure your site is in compliance with these guidelines. Several of our leading affiliates have already posted their disclosures, and they continue to enjoy great success.

Best wishes,

The iPowerWeb Affiliate Team

So what does this email from Ipowerweb.com mean?

In short if your a review site, and you don’t disclose that you created your site for the purpose of making money they will remove you from the affiliate program.  Here are the steps they recommend to be in compliance with the FTC.

  1. Frequent: Disclosures must be available on any page that has an endorsement.
  2. Clear: Language must be easy to understand; don’t attempt to hide the fact that it’s a disclosure.
  3. Conspicuous: Place your disclosure close to your endorsement or review. Differentiate the disclosure’s font treatment from the rest of your site.
  4. Require no action: The user shouldn’t need to click, hover or scroll to locate or understand the nature of your disclosure.

If Ipowerweb.com sticks with this, I have to commend them on doing things ethically.  I hope they did not start doing this because the FTC contacted them first.  I will be sure to contact them should I find any violators.

Be warned if you run a so called top review site, and you have Ipowerweb.

StartLogic.com – Fifth of the EIG hosts to ask affiliates to comply with the FTC

Here is another almost exact copy of 4 other blog posts this time StartLogic.com is in the spot of other company names. StartLogic.com is  added onto the list of Endurance International Group hosts to send out FTC compliance notices to their affiliates.  If you read some of my previous posts you will see that just like Justhost.com and ipower.com they used the same exact notice.   I will continue to do a post for each notice I recieve from Endurance International Group.  This is my first post on StartLogic.com, I have to say that it does not have the same feel as many of the Endurance International Group sites, not to mention I don’t really recall seeing it on any review sites.   I do know that they are with cj.com (Commission Junction). The first email about Federal Trade Commission guidelines was sent to Just Host affiliates.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/just-host.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipower-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/fatcow-com.html
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipage-com.html

A copy of the Email from StartLogic.com

Dear StartLogic Affiliate,
As you may know, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has strict guidelines that relate to affiliates who offer reviews, rankings, endorsements and testimonials; and we require all affiliates of our CJ program to comply with these requirements.To be compliant with the FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, StartLogic expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and StartLogic anytime you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services.View more information about StartLogic’s strict adherence to the FTC Endorsement Requirement.WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

If you provide reviews, rankings, endorsements or testimonials about a service for which you receive commissions from us, you must clearly disclose the fact that you receive such compensation in a clear and prominent place–that is close to your endorsement.

The FTC takes the Endorsement guidelines seriously and has started to enforce them for both content providers like yourself and advertisers like StartLogic.

As an advertiser, StartLogic will monitor affiliate sites to be sure our services are represented appropriately. Failure to comply with the endorsement guidelines could result in removal from our affiliate program and the cancellation of commissions.

TIPS FOR MAKING SURE YOUR SITE IS COMPLIANT

To make it easier for you, we’ve pulled together information, based on a recent FTC enforcement case, to illustrate ways you can disclose a material connection between you and your advertisers. Take a few minutes to review this summary at:

StartLogic Affiliate Disclosure Requirements and Examples

The FTC also offers a variety of resources to help make it easier for you to comply with the guidelines, including:

Please note: These links are intended to provide guidance only. If you provide endorsements of some type, you should obtain legal advice on how the FTC rules apply to you.

Please take steps immediately to make sure your site is in compliance with these guidelines. Several of our leading affiliates have already posted their disclosures, and they continue to enjoy great success.

Best wishes,

The StartLogic Affiliate Team

So what does this email from StartLogic.com mean?

In short if your a review site, and you don’t disclose that you created your site for the purpose of making money they will remove you from the affiliate program.  Here are the steps they recommend to be in compliance with the FTC.

  1. Frequent: Disclosures must be available on any page that has an endorsement.
  2. Clear: Language must be easy to understand; don’t attempt to hide the fact that it’s a disclosure.
  3. Conspicuous: Place your disclosure close to your endorsement or review. Differentiate the disclosure’s font treatment from the rest of your site.
  4. Require no action: The user shouldn’t need to click, hover or scroll to locate or understand the nature of your disclosure.

If StartLogic.com sticks with this, I have to commend them on doing things ethically.  I hope they did not start doing this because the FTC contacted them first.  I will be sure to contact them should I find any violators.

Be warned if you run a so called top review site, and you have StartLogic.

Unlimitedgb.com – A Call to Redemption

If you read my Twitter and Facebook feed from Thursday night, you will know that recently a host was trying to bribe me, which is Unlimitedgb.com. I have been asked to remove my post, as it shows up on the main page of  their search results. I wanted to be certain to do a broadcast to make it clear that I was not going to take a bribe before I contacted him again to see what he would pay.  However I am not in this to destroy, as I indicating with my very first posts.  As the title of this post suggests, I want Unlimitedgb.com to seek redemption.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/scams-to-avoid/unlimitedgb.html

I did a post on them because they choose to create fake comments on this blog to get people to visit their site. Which if you think about it, not a very smart move as this is a site that is all about exposing fake reviews for hosts Kind of like throwing rabbit in a snake pit thinking it will not get eaten. I quickly notices that the posts had a similar problem, they all entered my domain in field for website when making a comment.  I wrote my last post to point out how those spam comments were fake, and several other flaws with this host. To make matters worse they choose to create positive feed back on the very post that called them a scam. Never mind most of these forum trolls did not provide web sites that were hosted with this host. On top of that two of the responses came in the same day came from the same ip address. Not to mention the only positive review that came from someone that appeared to be a client (waterlemon.co.in ) appears to have moved to a Australian server last month.

This is my public letter to Unlimitedgb.com

To Sanson D’silva
Managing Director
Interweb iTech (India) Private Limited.

I am not removing my post, not for any amount of money.   I did not create this site to make money.  Yes there are ads, I would like the site to atleast pay its way.  The people that come to my site, don’t have shopping in mind.   In some cases they want to find a host or they want to complain about a host. You mentioned compensating me, and that I made money by making a post on your company.  To that I have to say I made $18 on adsense last month.  Taking the percentage of traffic I got last month for that single page I made $0.06 if anyone actually went to any of the ads on my site.  Yes the post has the most comments of any of my posts.  Which in part was because someone in your company thought it would be a good idea to post fake comments on my blog.  There are also a lot of unhappy customers as well.  Did it not occur to you that creating fake posts would only increase the relevance of my post in search engines?

I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I did not go looking for Unlimitedgb.com

If the fake comments such as someone that claimed to have been hosting with you for 2 years (never mind your domain whois says that is impossible) and other fake comments had never been posted.  I would never have known who your company was.  Which means I would not have made a post about unlimitedgb.com.

We do not share a similar situation. I owned (past tense) a hosting company that was effected by a review site (webhostingstuff.com), because they deleted positive feed back my customers gave me.   I did not go there and place the comments myself.  I asked them to restore my customer’s comments or to remove me out of their system.  Instead I was blocked, which lead to this site that goes after fake reviews by those in the hosting industry.  Fake reviews like what were done on my site by your company.

Why I will not delete my post on unlimitedgb.com and what can be done to salvage your reputation

Another thing that does not make us similar is I am not going to block you from contacting me as webhostingstuff.com did to me.  I am willing to work with you to turn things around.  The first thing I am going to tell you is it would not matter if I delete the post, you have a lot of angry customers.  Never mind if I did delete this post, someone would figure out that I did something dishonest and / or other people will create pages negative pages about unlimitedgb.com to take my posts place.

I suggest:

  • You need to admit to what was done, and what will be done to prevent it, here on this blog post.
  • You need to address the complaints of your customers.

Running from this will only make it worse, the only thing to do is to take this head on.  If you are willing to take on the complaints of your customers, I offer freely to mediate between you and your customers. I will even contact previous angry customers that posted on my blog as well as other sites if I can.Your not going to get out of this by paying people to remove the past.  Use that money to take care of your customers.

If you will work with me I will modify the post to change the results in search engines, but I will not remove it.

Regards,

Benjamin

P.S. Unlimitedgb has an opportunity to change, I am offering to help you do it.  But I will not give that opportunity to unlimitedgb in an unethical manner.

Amazon Cloud Drive – Great Idea, Poor Implementation

If your a back up nut like me, Amazon Cloud Drive seemed liked a good idea.  After all I have data all the way back to the late 80’s when I had  5.25 floppies I carried in two cases in my back pack.   Funny how all that data can fit on my smallest thumb drive and still leave ample room for more data.   The thing that lured me in was the free music storage, especially from previously bought Amazon Mp3s.  Til last month I had no idea of exactly how many mp3 albums I had purchased.  Which was 783.  It took 13 days on my home connection at .7 mbs to upload over 10,000 songs.  It seemed like I was putting toothpaste back in the tube.

The flaw with Amazon Cloud Drive

I make no excuses, I am a data horder.  Every tid bit of programming, graphic work, data base, spreed sheet, email, chat (got to love trillian), photos (digital and scanned), video, video game saves, documents, and perhaps a lot of data that could  easily be sent to eternal oblivion, and not be missed.   Over all I estimate that I have around 1 trig of data that I could not live without.  Would I pay $1,000 a year to store it?  Yes.   But the problem is folders.

One example is the photos I took for 2010.   Which are in a folder called 2010.  In it are folders labeled by month, in there are folders labeled by event (vacation, holiday, business trip) .  Last year I had 106 folders.  I do this in part because I take a lot of pictures, and don’t always label them.  Not to mention that moron cto I had at the beginning had borrowed my camera decided it was a smart thing to reset the numbering on my camera.

The fatal flaw is that Amazon Cloud Drive does not import folders.   I had contact Amazon about this and they told me:

Hello,

Thanks for your comments about uploading folders to Cloud. Customer feedback like yours really helps us continue to improve our products and provide better service to our customers. I’ve passed your suggestion to the appropriate team for consideration.

We hope to see you again soon.

I am not sure why they hope, it took me less then 30 minutes to buy something, in which case carbon for my fish tanks.  If you have read my posts frequently, you know I have love obsession when it comes to Amazon.com.  But it boggles the mind that they want to sell a product for $20 – $1,000 a year for storage, which does not upload folders.   Which means you create each folder and bulk load each picture in.  Which is a lot of mind numbing work as I have 3031 folders just in pictures.   For the amount of work it would take me to upload all of my photo’s to Amazon Cloud Drive, I might as well just get a dedicated server and upload everything by FTP.

How could Amazon, not have thought about folder uploading for Amazon Cloud drive?

I am not sure what Amazon was thinking.  Quirks like this with Amazon Cloud Drive, are what make me not want to try the hosting.  I don’t want want a reason to stop shopping at Amazon.  One of the things I noticed when I got the Kindle 2, was that instead of having page numbers, I got percentage.  It was not until the Kindle 3 that they decided to add page numbers.  Never mind I got my Kindle 2 five months before Kindle 3 came out, and it was not until last December (2010) they stopped selling the Kindle 2.  They have not released a patch for the Kindle 2 for page numbers, so like Kindle 3 readers they can read along with their paper back counter parts.

Here is hoping there is a Amazon Cloud Drive fix soon.

iPage.com – Fourth of the EIG hosts to ask affiliates to comply with the FTC

Once again another repeat of an email that is almost exactly alike the others, where iPage.com is in the spot of other company names.  iPage.com is  added onto the list of Endurance International Group hosts to send out FTC compliance notices to their affiliates.  If you read my last two posts you will see that just like Justhost.com and ipower.com they used the same exact notice.   I will continue to do a post for each notice I recieve from Endurance International Group.  Unless EIG stole this notices from Justhost.com,  I think it is safe to say that Justhost.com is a eig owned site.

The first email about Federal Trade Commission guidelines was sent to Just Host affiliates.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/just-host.html

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipower-com.html

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/fatcow-com.html

As I had hoped ipage.com was next.  After all it was a chat on ipage.com and fatcow.com that lead me to look into their connection.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/fatcow/fatcow-sucks-beware-read-this-fatcow-review-first-before-buying.html

A copy of the Email from iPage.com

Dear iPage Affiliate,

As you may know, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has strict guidelines that relate to affiliates who offer reviews, rankings, endorsements and testimonials; and we require all affiliates of our CJ program to comply with these requirements.To be compliant with the FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, iPage expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and iPage anytime you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services.

View more information about iPage’s strict adherence to the FTC Endorsement Requirement.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

If you provide reviews, rankings, endorsements or testimonials about a service for which you receive commissions from us, you must clearly disclose the fact that you receive such compensation in a clear and prominent place–that is close to your endorsement.

The FTC takes the Endorsement guidelines seriously and has started to enforce them for both content providers like yourself and advertisers like iPage.

As an advertiser, iPage will monitor affiliate sites to be sure our services are represented appropriately. Failure to comply with the endorsement guidelines could result in removal from our affiliate program and the cancellation of commissions.

TIPS FOR MAKING SURE YOUR SITE IS COMPLIANT

To make it easier for you, we’ve pulled together information, based on a recent FTC enforcement case, to illustrate ways you can disclose a material connection between you and your advertisers. Take a few minutes to review this summary at:

iPage Affiliate Disclosure Requirements and Examples

The FTC also offers a variety of resources to help make it easier for you to comply with the guidelines, including:

Please note: These links are intended to provide guidance only. If you provide endorsements of some type, you should obtain legal advice on how the FTC rules apply to you.

Please take steps immediately to make sure your site is in compliance with these guidelines. Several of our leading affiliates have already posted their disclosures, and they continue to enjoy great success.

Best wishes,

The iPage Affiliate Team

So what does this email from iPage.com mean?

In short if your a review site, and you don’t disclose that you created your site for the purpose of making money they will remove you from the affiliate program.  Here are the steps they recommend to be in compliance with the FTC.

  1. Frequent: Disclosures must be available on any page that has an endorsement.
  2. Clear: Language must be easy to understand; don’t attempt to hide the fact that it’s a disclosure.
  3. Conspicuous: Place your disclosure close to your endorsement or review. Differentiate the disclosure’s font treatment from the rest of your site.
  4. Require no action: The user shouldn’t need to click, hover or scroll to locate or understand the nature of your disclosure.

If iPage.com sticks with this, I have to commend them on doing things ethically.  I hope they did not start doing this because the FTC contacted them first.  I will be sure to contact them should I find any violators.

Be warned if you run a so called top review site, and you have iPage.

Fatcow.com the third of EIG hosts to comply with the FTC

I hate to be repetive, but Fatcow.com is  added onto the list of Endurance International Group hosts to send out FTC compliance notices to their affiliates.  If you read my last two posts you will see that just like Justhost.com and ipower.com they used the same exact notice.   I will continue to do a post for each notice I recieve from Endurance International Group.  Unless EIG stole this notices from Justhost.com,  I think it is safe to say that Justhost.com is a eig owned site.  I can only hope that ipage.com is next.  After all it was a chat on ipage.com and fatcow.com that lead me to look into their connection.

The first email about Federal Trade Commission guidelines was sent to Just Host affiliates.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/just-host.html

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/endurance-international-group/ipower-com.html

I can only hope that ipage.com is next.  After all it was a chat on ipage.com and fatcow.com that lead me to look into their connection.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/fatcow/fatcow-sucks-beware-read-this-fatcow-review-first-before-buying.html

A copy of the Email from Fatcow.com

Dear FatCow Affiliate,As you may know, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has strict guidelines that relate to affiliates who offer reviews, rankings, endorsements and testimonials; and we require all affiliates of our CJ program to comply with these requirements.To be compliant with the FTC

Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,

FatCow expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and FatCow anytime you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services.

View more information about FatCow’s strict adherence to the FTC Endorsement Requirement.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

If you provide reviews, rankings, endorsements or testimonials about a service for which you receive commissions from us, you must clearly disclose the fact that you receive such compensation in a clear and prominent place–that is close to your endorsement.

The FTC takes the Endorsement guidelines seriously and has started to enforce them for both content providers like yourself and advertisers like FatCow.

As an advertiser, FatCow will monitor affiliate sites to be sure our services are represented appropriately. Failure to comply with the endorsement guidelines could result in removal from our affiliate program and the cancellation of commissions.

TIPS FOR MAKING SURE YOUR SITE IS COMPLIANT

To make it easier for you, we’ve pulled together information, based on a recent FTC enforcement case, to illustrate ways you can disclose a material connection between you and your advertisers. Take a few minutes to review this summary at:

FatCow Affiliate Disclosure Requirements and Examples

The FTC also offers a variety of resources to help make it easier for you to comply with the guidelines, including:

Please note: These links are intended to provide guidance only. If you provide endorsements of some type, you should obtain legal advice on how the FTC rules apply to you.

Please take steps immediately to make sure your site is in compliance with these guidelines. Several of our leading affiliates have already posted their disclosures, and they continue to enjoy great success.

Best wishes,

The FatCow Affiliate Team

So what does this email from Fatcow.com mean?

In short if your a review site, and you don’t disclose that you created your site for the purpose of making money they will remove you from the affiliate program.  Here are the steps they recommend to be in compliance with the FTC.

  1. Frequent: Disclosures must be available on any page that has an endorsement.
  2. Clear: Language must be easy to understand; don’t attempt to hide the fact that it’s a disclosure.
  3. Conspicuous: Place your disclosure close to your endorsement or review. Differentiate the disclosure’s font treatment from the rest of your site.
  4. Require no action: The user shouldn’t need to click, hover or scroll to locate or understand the nature of your disclosure.

If Fatcow.com sticks with this, I have to commend them on doing things ethically.  I hope they did not start doing this because the FTC contacted them first.  I will be sure to contact them should I find any violators.

Be warned if you run a so called top review site, and you have Fatcow.

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