888.com aka Cassava Enterprises aka CON

[Professor]

Nicolas stated that 888 is committed to curtailing all unethical marketing practices including blog spam, content theft, Google Bowling and support of Black Hat Seo techniques. This would encompass affiliate activities as well as anything being done by consultants or in house personal.

[Professor]

Oh and by the way its been asked if we are focusing on 888 only with respects to Black Hat Seo practices.

The answer is no, we are not only focusing on them, but we ARE addressing these companies as individuals. This makes the process manageable and quite frankly we don't agree with the premise of "Well, if others are doing it's ok for us to also"

We WILL hold each group or entity responsible and accountable for THEIR actions.

Rome wasn't built in a day, it was built one brick at a time. 888 is the first brick in the road to a more ethical marketing enviroment for everyone.

[jetset]

Kudos to you for taking the initiative on this and starting a process that will hopefiully work for everyone involved, Professor!

I look forward to following the progress of this worthwhile liaison.

[dominique]

We WILL hold each group or entity responsible and accountable for THEIR actions.

Damn straight we will!

[Professor]

An update from Nicolas just arrived:

Dear Louis,

As discussed, the following outlines our new policies on our stance against illegal marketing activity:

1. Our Affiliate Program has instituted new contractual terms that clearly specify our stance against any illegal or unethical marketing practices, including "blog spamming" and "site scraping". To access them please use the following link to our new modified Terms and Conditions for 888.com Affiliates and note Section 2: https://affiliates.888.com/General/G...s.aspx?Lang=en

2. In a further attempt to clarify our policies, we have also added a notice in our Affiliate Program called our "Ethical Marketing Practice Policy” which is located at bottom of the affiliates home page: https://affiliates.888.com/Login/mainPage.aspx

3. To report any misbehavior of our affiliates please click the link called "email us" located on our Affiliate homepage, https://affiliates.888.com/Login/mainPage. Or, alternatively you can email any complaints to the following email address, reportspam@888.com.

4. Each email will be handled as following:

a) It will be investigated and if we determine that the affiliate has engaged in any sort of unethical activity as outlined in our Policies we will block the specific site and send a one-time warning to cease this behavior.

b) If after receipt of one warning the behavior repeats or persists then that affiliate's account will be blocked and any further payments due the affiliate will be suspended.

c) An email update reporting the result will then be sent to the person who emailed us the complaint within 72 hours.

4. To ensure efficient handling of all complaints, please use the e-mail above as we cannot follow complaints through forum posts on CAP or other Forums.

We look forward to working with our affiliates, potential affiliates, and CAP members in this endeavor. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need more information.


Sincerely,

Nicolas Lev

[Professor]

Please note: We certainly apopreciate these positive first steps announced by 888, but a gauge of real progress is when we see that scrapers and spammers are no longer directing their traffic to 888.

Once we see that take place we will KNOW that these new guidelines are actually being enforced and arent merely a Public Relations exercise.

I think that is a KEY development I am eagerly awaiting.

[Casinomeister]

Good one, Lou. I'm just waiting for them to address the activities that Casava has been up to with casinoonnet-online.com etc. They haven't made a peep about this.

[Professor]

Good one, Lou. I'm just waiting for them to address the activities that Casava has been up to with casinoonnet-online.com etc. They haven't made a peep about this.

I will see If we can't get the cat to release their tongue on this one too

[jetset]

As you say, "so far, so good," Lou.

I sincerely hope that all thinking and professional affiliates are rallying around you in this collaborative effort which has such potential to start bringing the black hats under control.

As a first move this looks encouraging to me. I'm sure your colleagues will avail themselves of the offer to report any black hat activity that surfaces and who is responsible for it...that's the way to start whittling these black hats down.

[lots0]

I sincerely hope that all thinking and professional affiliates are rallying around you in this collaborative effort which has such potential to start bringing the black hats under control.

I think your correct, if the affiliates can stay together.
But unfortunately these kind of groups often have a way of slipping apart before things are completed.