888.com aka Cassava Enterprises aka CON

[jetset]

xxhttp://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/showthread.php?p=74777#post74777

This will really stir things up.

Talk about taking a sledge hammer to an issue best resolved with a rapier!

I think this sort of threatening approach is a huge mistake - I would rather have seen a consultative approach with leading affiliate representatives, public condemnation of the black hat tactics and a public presence explaining what they are doing to counter the behaviour they have been accused of.

This is imo an arrogant, heavy handed approach instead of a professional and communicative course backed by real action to resolve the issues.

[Casinomeister]

The 888.com ("888") brand is one of the most respected gaming brands in the world today and represents one of our most valuable assets. We are committed to nurturing and growing it by utilizing only best industry practices in all of our marketing activities.

Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

I'm wondering if this rep is speaking on behalf of 888.com or Random Logic's?

It may not be Random Logic that is doing the blog spamming - it's probably someone in Cassava's office. How else would this be explained?

http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/888.html

Regardless - it's happening, and it looks as though they don't understand what is wrong with this picture.

[dominique]

888 proved to me that they have been trying to get in touch with me. Likely what happened is that my boxtrapper sent them a query back to confirm they were a live being, and their spam filter filtered out the boxtrapper notice as mass mail. Result: mail stuck in cyberspace.

We have the (^$#(*^^ing spammers to thank for that, it is becoming more and more frequent that important communications get lost like this.

Due to the nature of these older communications I am going to be talking with them, in spite of that threatening post above.

The objective here is to clean up a mess in the industry, and that is my only goal. If that can be done, I will be happy. There has been some sign of 888 cleaning up some, now we need to see the rest of it.

It would also be helpful if threats were kept at a minumum, they could result in a class action law suit and I don't really want to see any of this.

What I would like to see is an industry that self polices and cleans up messes.

Maybe I am just an old fool, but I strongly believe that we can do that, and that we are slowly making progress.

Perhaps 888 will join in the effort. If so, I would welcome it.

[jetset]

If 888.com is smart they will eschew the legal threats and build on this letter by engaging with top affiliates to develop a joint approach to put a stop to black hat practices.

Lev's letter claims that they are making moves, and that they are prepared to act on credible complaints made to them about their affiliates. That's a start.

I'm sure 888 affiliates are not the only questionable marketers pulling these stunts, but 888 is the one under the spotlight and they need to respond to that as a matter of urgency by working with the affiliate community instead of in confrontation with it imo.

And if the top affiliates are wise they will get their heads together and meet 888.com halfway in an effort to resolve this crippling feud.

That's short term. Long term is that affiliates need to bind - a fragmented sector is a weak sector.

[Professor]

If 888.com is smart they will eschew the legal threats and build on this letter by engaging with top affiliates to develop a joint approach to put a stop to black hat practices.

Actually and unfortunately they have seemingly chosen to go in the opposite direction. They are openly and actively courting the Blackhat SEO community rather then taking the high road. See this:

xhttp://seoblackhat.com/2006/06/05/seo-poker-tournament/x

For anyone not familiar with the term "Blackhat SEO" this is a rather broad label which encompasses any banned, illegal or unethical technique used to acheive top ranking positions at major search engines like Google. These would include content theft or scraping, blog and message board spamming and organized sabotage of competitors and legitimate providers via Google Bowling or distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS). Believe it or not there are communities where practicioners of these so called black arts congregate and 888 has decided to align themselves with these people!

I have no idea how a publicly traded company could openly embrace illegal activties, but that's exactly what's happening. Excerpts from the site listed above read:

SEO Poker Tournament - "We have found a replacement Sponsor for the SEO Poker Tournament. We looked at several great sites and decided to work with Pacific Poker / 888 online casino. " - "Sharon, VIP Affiliate Account Manager for 888, has been extremely responsive and helpful in getting this set up. Their affiliate program is very competitive (like $300 for each 888 Casino signups) and if you promote in the gambling space, I highly recommend checking out their affiliate program. "

Long term is that affiliates need to bind - a fragmented sector is a weak sector.

We have been doing just that since 2000 at groups like CAP and GPWA, but it's still an up hill battle. In the case of 888 we are dealing with a company with vast resources and no compunction about using any means available to them. If people viewed this as an industry wide challenge rather then merely an affront to affiliate webmasters that would certainly help.

I hope through education and positive dialogue on the issue we can convince other organizations like eCogra to assist us in directing the online gaming industry away from the wild west attitude of "might makes right" that is being taken by 888 casino.

[dominique]

I have just received word from 888 regarding this: xhttp://seoblackhat.com/2006/06/05/seo-poker-tournament/x

It was the very first point I brought up in a mail exchange, and 888 says they will make sure to do no business with them from now on.

That is a start.

Lev's letter claims that they are making moves, and that they are prepared to act on credible complaints made to them about their affiliates.

Unfortunately this sounds nice but is a rather useless offer. Since the sites in question are produced in multiples of 10,000, it is almost impossible to find them all.

These type of sites expect to only get one click a piece, so literally hundreds of thousands of sites are produced to generate enough clicks to produce a worthwhile number of actual depositing players.

888 needs to be proactive on this and locate the sites themselves. This should be fairly easy to ascertain, as statistics can provide the URL of origin of a visitor. If an affiliate has visitors coming from hundreds of sites, it will be easy enough to locate this, and check these sites out to see if they are blackhat spam or not.

Deleting one site at a time after complaints is quite useless.

888 is not the lone offender, there are at least two other places that routinely use such spamdexing. (the multiple sites described above).

They are not slipping under our radar, and would be wise to take measures to switch marketing techniques to more acceptable and legal forms.

Affiliates may not be united, but increasingly have been acting in tandem. Cooperation has been improving and I hope it will continue to improve.

We do all have the same interests at heart.

Let's also keep this in mind: Annoying the heck out of google is bad business!

The professor says:

I hope through education and positive dialogue on the issue we can convince other organizations like eCogra to assist us in directing the online gaming industry away from the wild west attitude of "might makes right" that is being taken by 888 casino.

That would certainly be nice.

[Pinababy69]

You know Dom and Professor, sometimes big things can be accomplished in small steps. I think you guys are definitely on the right track, and as Jetset stated, you guys all really need to pull together if you're going to accomplish anything...and you need to stick together. It is the ONLY way to get anything done in this business. You have obviously turned up the heat enough for 888 to feel it. If only more people in this industry would become more pro-active about even one issue that affects them, or that they feel strongly about. There are lots who will comment from the sidelines, but not enough who will actually DO something. It can get really frustrating.

Professor, thanks for that post. For the first time in a few weeks, I was able to sit and actually read through something that made sense re: 888, without it just being about eCOGRA. I really wish you guys the best of luck with this, and hope that you can achieve a satisfactory outcome for all involved.

[Webzcas]

I hope through education and positive dialogue on the issue we can convince other organizations like eCogra to assist us in directing the online gaming industry away from the wild west attitude of "might makes right" that is being taken by 888 casino.

I have been having dialogue with Andrew Beveridge from eCOGRA just this week, when he contacted me on Thursday.

I have also had Yariv a media buyer from Random Logic contact me earlier in the week on Tuesday:

One of our many responsibilities is conducting all the online media buying for the two brands

operated by our sister company (Cassava Enterprises Gibraltar):

www.casino-on-net.com also known as www.888.com and

www.pacificpoker.com

Having reviewed your site, I believe that there is an advertising opportunity for us on

onlinecasinoreviewer.com.

Part of my response was this below, which I also cc'd to Andrew @ eCOGRA:

I am very interested in your response, or are you now resorting to spamming portals to attract additional business as well as unrelated blogs.

As it was quite clear he had not even visited my site in question which he wanted to buy space on, otherwise he would have seen that 888 were currently and still are rogued.

Now Lou ( Professor ) recieves that mail from a Mr Lev at Random Logic.

One thing 888 have proved is communication is an area that they are not exactly hot on. Otherwise as Bryan pointed out:

Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

I'm wondering if this rep is speaking on behalf of 888.com or Random Logic's?

It may not be Random Logic that is doing the blog spamming - it's probably someone in Cassava's office. How else would this be explained?

http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/888.html

Regardless - it's happening, and it looks as though they don't understand what is wrong with this picture.

The key for this whole mess to be resolved is for 888 to open dialogue with all members of CAP. But I guess 888 figure they are too big for this to happen. Time will tell....

One final comment for 888 to ponder on. FACT INTO DOUBT WON'T GO

[jetset]

I'm not in the affiliate sector at all, so you-all clearly have a way better knowledge of the politics of the animal and happenings within it than myself, but sometimes an outside perspective is worth hearing.

Whilst I can absolutely understand the anger and frustration this situation is generating (and that comes over clearly in these posts for me), I truly think that the best way to go forward is not through recrimination but reconciliation. That's assuming there is a genuine will on both sides to resolve these serious differences.

Factual contributions such as those listed here by the Professor, Dom, Casinomeister and Webzcas need to be addressed by 888.com in collaboration with the affiliate community if anything significantly positive is to be achieved.

It needs to be an engagement of equals and kept as businesslike and calm as possible.

It needs to be between the same hopefully senior people on both sides for consistency and agreed plans of action.

Is there no way that senior affiliate representatives could suggest to 888.com's top management some sort of face to face discussion? Taken at face value, the statements from both camps would indicate to me that there is common ground to build on here.

The alternative is an increasingly bitter war of attrition on the message boards, possibly escalating to direct business confrontations and who knows what else. That's not good for either party or the image of the industry i.m.o.

[Webzcas]

The alternative is an increasingly bitter war of attrition on the message boards, possibly escalating to direct business confrontations and who knows what else. That's not good for either party or the image of the industry i.m.o.

This is certainly something I do not want and I am also sure everyone involved including 888 feel the same way.

In the meantime I am going to be concentrating on my sites. This whole issue has been too much of a distraction and it is clear we all are going round in circles.