Izea’s paid shilling scheme first launched in 2006 and has evolved from there. But the essence of it is the same: people get paid to shill products on their blogs (and now Twitter). It’s pollution.
Disclosure of the conflict of interest became mandatory for people shilling products in late 2006. But that disclosure is often muddled. For example, people shilling on Twitter need only add “#spon” to the post to satisfy the disclosure requirements.
Most big brands have avoided Izea like the plague. FCC regulations on word of mouth advertising are becoming stricter over time, and Izea is on the front line of this nonsense.
But now brands may be sucked into Izea’s pay per post scheme whether they like it or not. WOMMA founder and spam fighter Andy Sernovitz noticed a number of well known brands, like USA Today, Home Shopping Network, Priceline, 1-800-Contacts, Carbonite and StubHub (owned by eBay) all recently had campaigns running on Izea’s SocialSpark site. It’s shocking that those brands would associate themselves with Izea, so he dug further. And it turns out that at least some of them (and probably all of them) had no idea they were listed as Izea advertisers.
Izea pulled them in through Commission Junction, an affiliate marketing company, via a program they are testing called the Izea Partner Network: “Izea works with third party affiliate and display networks to syndicate unique and exciting offers to the SocialSpark social media network. These opportunities are only CPC and CPA and are largely performance driven.”
The result? Brands like Home Shopping Network, who have no relationship with Izea, are spammed across Twitter and blogs with $0.13/click links.
All of these ads were quickly taken down. We’ve contacted a few for comment. Carbonite CEO David Friend wrote back “A CJ affiliate was using pay-per-post to try to sell Carbonite and a bunch of other products. This was apparent because the landing page had a Commission Junction cookie on it. We checked a few of the guy’s other “featured” companies and they all had the same sort of affiliate tracking code. Our affiliate manager contacted CJ and cut them off because we don’t allow pay-per-post schemes. An affiliate program requires constant policing because some of these guys will try almost anything and you just have to monitor it very carefully. We have a full time person on it.”
Commission Junction hasn’t responded to an inquiry yet. Izea CEO Ted Murphy responded with “Thanks for reaching out to me. I am a bit tied up. What type of questions do you have? Everything in test right now. Not much to it yet.”
Let’s just hope Commission Junction and other advertising networks put a stop to this test before other brands are hurt.
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN FOR BETTER BLOGNALISM
ACTION #1: TC GET RID OF MG Siegler!!
i’m with you on the mg thing!!!
get rid of mg!
I am with you on this as well…
Are you guys compete idiots or what?
Luis… That was a bit out of line… MG’s been a great addition to this team.
This is why I don’t trust short URL services. I don’t know what the hell I’m clicking on.
I agree with you completely on this. I like the idea, but with this vanity URL thing, hopefully all the relevant sites will get rid of stupid ass characters, alpha numbers etc. and be more specific with addresses the way tc does it.
The only problem left will be with services like twitter who allow only 140 character tweets. Someone will figure a way out for that too.
Adding on to my previous response, remember the facebook spam a few weeks back. tiny URL concept is great and all, but things need to be improved/made safe before it goes mainstream.
The internet is filled with marketing scumbags. Its amazing what people will try to make a buck on
We’ve all seen some type of spam on twitter. There just needs to be more done to regulate the user-generated material, especially when it is behind the brands backs.
Anyone seen these promotions, etc as trending topics on twitter?
Bringing in business vs. hurting the brand.
Ted Murphy vs. Michael Arrington — Round 416! I have a feeling that this isn’t going to end well:)
A good example of lack of due diligence when accepting an affiliate. When reviewing an affiliate, always ask yourself “do I want this site associated with my brand” and not just “will this site make me money?”.
I would err on the side of caution, the affiliate world is sadly filled with scammy “make money in your sleep” crowd even though its a potential great way to develop sales.
We have been working with the CJ and many other affiliate networks to integrate their offers with SocialSpark for some time. We believe our network of bloggers and strict code of ethics can bring additional value to affiliate networks and the advertisers that participate in them. Two weeks we initiated a limited test and created a handful of affiliate offers inside SocialSpark through these networks.
Like all CJ Partners we are required to apply to participate in campaigns. The IZEA publisher profile is denoted as a special incentive network by CJ and provides an overview of our properties and services. We can’t publish any offers without the advertiser first seeing our information and accepting us into their network.
Last Monday I spoke to an advertiser who had some questions about our services. While they approved our account to participate in their program, it became clear to me that they didn’t fully understand exactly what we do or how we do it.
After speaking with this advertiser I made the call to proactively halt the test for the time being. We need to provide more clarification for advertisers participating in third party networks. I realize this is a new space for all of us. We are taking it slowly, gathering feedback and making adjustments along the way.
Ted Murphy
CEO of IZEA
Ted, don’t listen to these clowns. You are truly doing disruptive work. Whenever somebody screws with the natural order of things like this, there is bound to be backlash. All IZEA does is make a market more efficient, even if violently so.
Keep it up!
Thanks Joe.
The biggest causality of innovation is the entrepreneur.
To all you other disruptors out there keep fighting the good fight. If people in your industry claim the sky is falling chances are you are on to something big. Horse farmers didn’t like the invention of the automobile either.
I’m sorry, but perfecting spam and shilling is nothing to be proud about.
I think bringing disclosure to affiliate marketing is.
Perhaps you should focus on building up, rather than tearing down companies.
If you really want to make a difference how about getting behind universal disclosure.
http://izea.com...sal-disclosure/
I’m sorry, but #spon is NOT disclosure. Furthermore, putting these brands into your system without their knowledge and putting them at risk with consumers and the FCC is just irresponsible.
To say that we focus on tearing down companies is absurd. I’m pretty sure you only read this blog when we write about you guys.
If you don’t think #spon is disclosure what is? Let’s talk. I am open. I always have been. Let’s be constructive, not destructive. If there is a better way I am all ears. I’ve told Andy the same thing for years.
We are trying to create a standard for disclosure in a new medium. Affiliate links are being tweeted and blogged every day with no disclosure of any sort. Why are you focusing on IZEA when the affiliate world is the wild west? IZEA should be commended, not attacked.
We have been commended by the FTC for our work on disclosure. We have been reviewed by WOMMA and their legal counsel. We have set the highest standard out there for transparency. Your arguments are absurd and unfounded.
We applied to be part of these brands affiliate networks. They accepted us. That’s how CJ works. They had knowledge prior to any campaign launching.
if the brands “accepted” the program why were all the ads removed? Why is carbonite saying they didn’t?
This is super sketchy.
WOMMA does not provide legal reviews or endorsements.
The FTC did not “commend” you. Quite the opposite, your practices are the focus of the FTC’s current investigation: http://bit.ly/D8Ea3
“Universal Disclosure” is your latest fake disclosure smokescreen. You invent them every few months to distract from the real disclosure programs.
@arrington: Since IZEA’s launch in 2006 I’ve blogged for charity, blogged for profit, advertised and invested with them, so I’ve seen this company and industry from multiple perspectives. IZEA’s efforts to bring affiliate blogging into full disclosure is a huge step in a great direction for that industry. I’m not aware of a single affiliate network that matches IZEA’s Code of Ethics — http://socialsp.../code_of_ethics — or even mentions disclosure in their TOS. Even TechCrunch has carried in-post affiliate links without disclosing them as such — http://www.tech...comment-2716406 (note:Amazon doesn’t require aff full disclosure like IZEA). As such, it’s possible your long-standing feud with Ted may have clouded your view of the real story here — IZEA bringing affiliate blogging out of the undisclosed shadows is a good thing for consumers and the industry. I think that’s some common ground you two can agree on — and help the affiliate industry stay out of the FTC’s cross-hairs.
As for Carbonite specifically, I did check CJ.com tonight and found that my blog cannot access their programs/links without approval. If you’ve found a way to do that, I’d like to know — they’ve got a very good product and multiple great affiliate offers for bloggers.
@sernovitz: I’m not a big fan of Ted’s Universal Disclosure proposal (industry won’t agree to disclosure registry/audits like IZEA offers), but I appreciate that he continues to push bloggers, marketers, and now affiliate networks, toward greater transparency. I noticed your multiple references to the FTC so I thought I’d shed some light for all on the most direct example proposed by the FTC for sponsored blogging.
(from FTC proposed Guidelines)
Example 7: A college student who has earned a reputation as a video game expert maintains a personal weblog or “blog” where he posts entries about his gaming experiences. Readers of his blog frequently seek his opinions about video game hardware and software. As it has done in the past, the manufacturer of a newly released video game system sends the student a free copy of the system and asks him to write about it on his blog. He tests the new gaming system and writes a favorable review. The readers of his blog are unlikely to expect that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the video game system, this fact would likely materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge.
Now consider these two posts against that example:
1) Chris Brogan blogs about KMart and discloses gift card as required by IZEA (~$500): http://dadomati...ping-dad-style/
2) Andy Sernovitz, blogs about USNavy but doesn’t disclose free flights and accomodations (~$5000 + trip of a lifetime) : http://www.damn...e-openness.html
With that context, it becomes pretty clear that the FTC is focused more on free boondoggles and undisclosed posts like yours (and undisclosed free gifts/passes to many tech blogs) than IZEA’s fully-disclosed posts like Brogan’s or IZEA’s fully-disclosed affiliate posts. I understand this may not change your spin because you/GasPedal compete directly with IZEA for brand/agency customers, but hopefully it helps others understand and comply with the FTC’s proposed guides.
Dan -
I will compliment you on your skills of spin and deception. Whenever Izea gets outed for sleazery, your job is to propose an assortment of random attacks to deflect the valid criticism. And 99% of the time, you forget to mention that you are their main investor and serve as their shill in these fights. I love people who claim their high horse on the disclosure issue, but fail to disclose their relationships.
In regard to your latest distractions:
1. Izea deceived CJ’s advertisers, tricked them into a pay-per-tweet scheme, and got kicked out. Now you’re spinning it that your helping the affiliate industry? They don’t want you either. This is like says “we got caught shoplifting – to teach stores about better security.”
2. You are not in compliance with FTC guidelines. Misquote all you want.
3. I guess you’ve moved on from “Andy and Ted have a history” attacks to “Andy competes with Izea”. I’m a consultant and author, teaching ethics. You run a spam network. How do we compete? Everything I do is on my site, no secrets – readers, you decide.
What is clear is that you always respond to critics with personal attacks.
What will happen next:
1. Assorted bloggers who are affiliated with Izea but never met me and who have never been aware of this issue will start spontaneous attacks against me. Happens every time.
2. Dan and Ted will keep throwing assorted justifications for their sleaze out there, to see what sticks.
In the end, they’re still spammers.
Andy,
1. Why don’t you respond to Dan’s question about your undisclosed USNavy posts? Are you going to say that this wasn’t a fully comped experience for you and your blogger counterparts?
Let’s ask the FTC what they think about those posts.
2. We didn’t deceive any advertisers. We applied to the CJ programs for these advertisers. They accepted. It is part of the CJ system. There is no way around that.
3. We are in compliance with the FTC. We have directly engaged with them. You have no ground to stand on here. This is libel.
@tedmurphy: Andy doesn’t need to explain me why he didn’t disclose free travel because my point was about the “practice” rather than the “person”. His recent free trip/boondoggle just provided a stark example of what the FTC wants to rein in, hard/soft-money influence peddling without disclosure. The FTC wants bloggers, marketers, affiliates and everyone to operate more like http://socialsp.../code_of_ethics . Unless Andy’s advocating no disclosure for free gifts, trips, products, aff payouts etc. then I think you guys actually want the same thing: disclosure of value exchanged.
@sernovitz: Don’t take my examples personally. I just wanted to share some facts in the discussion, and those posts provide real-life facts similar to the FTC’s proposed blogger outreach example.
I see a lot of words coming out of Ted’s keyboard here, but they all mean the same thing: spam spam spam spam spam spam spam (everyone sing along) spam spam spam.
Ted, you’re just a spam punk. Case closed.
Ted – Those four people that the FTC nailed for the car warranty robocalls are on the job market now. Sounds like they would be the perfect addition to to your team!
While the majority of affiliates add value, an unsupervised program definitely opens them up merchants to further abuse.
Also, I believe it is the FTC that has been sharpening its focus on word-of-mouth marketing.
Ted,
Keep up the good work. If you want to chat about sponsored conversations and Twitter, feel free to reach out. Alot has changed since we spoke at SXSW in March.
Cheers-
James Eliason
Founder/CEO
Twittad.com
lol. Spammers Unite!
Maybe we can throw all of them a big party — spamapalooza — aboard a cruise ship somewhere off the coast of Somalia.
Spamming on Twitter Mike is “Hey check out this chicks video, blah blah blah” in order to spread porn or something else in a community that doesn’t really need it.
The fact of the matter is, is that this form of marketing with Twitter users helping spread the word about a particular product is something brands are very interested in. Jason Calacanis believes some form of sponsorship (at the 140con in Mountain View) on Twitter profiles is a revenue model that might be considered.
Perhaps you saw the Twittad Land Rover Campaign that was covered in AdAge we did months ago? Or maybe a more recent campaign in which we ran a legitimate marketing campaign for Elations that involved the Twitter community. You can read about it here: http://twittad.com/blog/?p=432
I, like Ted respect everyone’s opinion regarding sponsored conversation. We have been doing this on Twitter since August of 2008, when your blog covered us. However, since then unfortunately you haven’t been keeping track of what we are doing.
J
How is what you are doing different?
Your pushing links to your blog everyday Michael.
I’m not 100% on what Ted is up to…however seeing his rebuttal has shed some transparency into what he is up to.
Mike,
Don’t be old school and naive. I do undersand your point, but you have to be more realistic.
There is a full disclosure all over the place. Now, if people don’t follow it, it has nothing to do with IZEA.
BTW, you overused the word “shilling” in your post.
Yea, I’m sorry Michael. I won’t go into the whole Spam and ethics thing. But the internet is open to business. Spam isn’t unethical or illegal. Those advertisers knew they were joining an affiliate network for godsake. Yes, spam is pollution. But the point to me is this: it’s disheartening that so many internet companies are failing and TC is so closed off to a “do what u gotta” do attitude. I don’t know how much Izea is making and if it truly is a financial success, but I hope they’re making money and I hope more people learn how to make money through the internet with them. To me, this isn’t about fun and games. This is where people in the 21st century are going to go to support their family. And just because you, Michael Arrington, are one of a billion people who have their inbox stuffed with spam, doesn’t make spamming a crime or anything close to it. You’re alone in your hatred of spam. You’re an anomaly, and you run my favorite blog. But your feelings toward spam by no means represent the feelings everyone else has. Everyone else gets a manageable amount of spam, and probably find it easier to deal with email spam then snail mail spam. So who gives a hoot.
I don’t even do affiliate marketing, but I many people who do, and who basically turned their life around because of it. Yes, they could build a more valuable business. But, hey, it speaks to the power of the internet. It really does. The internet allows someone who’s motivated and maybe doesn’t have all the credentials but has a good head on his/her shoulders to make a living and achieve the financial success they want. Not that this hasn’t been the case with other industries in the past, but right now the internet and technology is that manifest destiny that the wild west once was. And you’re basically shitting on all that isn’t the upper echelon of VC-funded twitter trash startups. At the end of the day, it’s your blog. And you’re not doing anything wrong either. I’m just trying to convince you to write an article that maybe can be more informative about their product–i.e. maybe tell us a few of the cool things about it, rather than how horrible it is. Maybe tell us some stats about how advertisers have profited from it, and what useful features Izea has that made it possible. Again, it’s your site, and you can cover what you want. Basically, you’d be a hell of a lot cooler if you weren’t in the whiney anti Izea/Affiliate-Marketing/Spam camp.
Guess you’re too main stream, and just gotta say the right things like a politician or something. Maybe you’d be so kind to hit me with a comment wall reply here???
spam is still spam no matter what the justification, its bad for users and advertisers too.
This FTC thing, is it just something for you americans to be concerned about? If so, please mail me about the ROW oppurtunities
Every company should be concerned about social media ethics. It’s the right thing to do — and you risk humiliating your brand if you get caught in a blog spam scandal.
It starts with the issue of disclosure, but it’s really about fake endorsements. You would never consider paying for a fake endorsement in your print or TV ads (the government would fine you and you’d get fired). So why would you use a blog spam service to pay for fake endorsements from blogs?
You should create a social media ethics policy and training program to protect your company:
1. Use the open-source Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit: http://blogcoun....org/disclosure
2. Review the WOMMA ethics code: http://womma.org/ethics
3. Create a formal policy and training program. Here is a short video that explains how: http://bit.ly/paJq5
Remember, there is a clear consensus by every major social media association, the government, and the leading bloggers: Paying for blog spam is unethical and illegal. The only disagreement is from the single vendor who wants to sell you this service. You may want to talk to your lawyer if you’re unsure which side is the right one.
Andy
Andy… a quick one for you…. if you are talking about social media ethics, why do you delete comments on your blog when someone does not agree with you?
We delet comments from Izea because they send shills to post without disclosure. They do it again and again and again. It’s a set up. We delete spam comments, just like all bloggers do.
This is typical Izea response. They can’t defend the facts, so they use personal attacks.
Andy,
I do not work for IZEA and I have nothing to do with them
You have deleted a few of my comments on your blog in the past, only because i believe in the IZEA model… that’s all…
You want to talk about disclosure? Your whole crusade against Ted Murphy is just an advertising platform for your GasPedal company and your “for pay” disclosure policies. It’s one thing to point out a flaw, it’s another thing entirely to be a hypocrite.
I do not have any “for pay” disclosure policies.
There are free to use by everyone. Please download them and use them:
http://blogcoun....org/disclosure
http://womma.org/ethics
(I love arguing disclosure with people like you who will not disclosure your own identity. That’s the definition of hypocrite.)
Andy,
I have heard a lot about you. It is interesting to see you fighting the fight on a Techcrunch blog post.
Curious on a few things;
1) @savvyauntie – what is your opinion? TNT obviously found a resource no? Is this different from them putting a banner ad for their show on say..a website?
2) What if @aplusk had a sponsored background from VW like Jason Calacanus mentioned at the 140Con in Mountain View? Would 2.5 million people stop following him?
Is it good $0.13 per click ? I think google would be better .
What’s ironic about this is that twitter has created the perfect spam engine, yet everyone is outraged when it gets spam. Techcrunch and the rest of silicon valley needs to get a clue and realize that twitter is nothing more than a technical “tickle me elmo” and will soon fall victim to it’s own simplicity. It’s literally too easy to get set up and start posting on twitter. Without a barrier to post twitter will be filled with junk and nobody will want to use it anymore. There are many ways twitter could be limiting the number and frequency of posts, but it chooses not to. This has two effects, it screws them in terms of scaling and it also places no value on a post which mean spam is out of control. Twitter has to fix it or face the consequence which is it’s own demise (and it will happen quick, twitter is honey mooning right now, but will not be for very long).
In closing I think spam will always be around. It is not the spammers responsibility to own up to it’s shady practice, but rather the web services responsibility to effectively wage the war on spam on behalf of the consumer. So techcrunch should stop calling out individual spammers and instead call out the useless spam engine the world knows as twitter.
Funny that Mr. Friend states, “we don’t allow pay-per-post schemes” – yet his own company is participating in such actions. Why else would we find blog posts with the anchor text “Carbonite” linking to the Wikipedia entry (ex: http://lagaligo...from-carbonite/), their Webware 100 winner announcement (ex: http://www.teho...ine-pc-back-up/), their Facebook page (ex: http://template...-to-backup.html), or their Twitter account (ex: http://www.grab...cheap_air_deals) – all without linking to the Carbonite.com homepage. Clearly, these are paid posts, yet are not disclosed as such.
After Carbonite employees were caught writing overly-positive product reviews earlier this year (http://en.wikip...iew_Controversy), Friend’s hypocritical company is once again caught red-handed.
The buzz on this article demonstrates that we are in unchartered territory and the rules of engagement are not yet clear within the social media landscape. Commission Junction wholeheartedly agrees with both TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington and Izea’s Ted Murphy that the disclosure statement of Izea’s distribution method(s) is outdated and needs to be amended in order for advertisers to make an informed choice regarding their affiliation with Izea. CJ is modifying that description ASAP and all advertisers – including those currently affiliated with Izea – will be notified. They will have the opportunity to review and determine if Izea is right for their business before any affiliations proceed. As a network, we provide a marketplace in which advertisers can choose which publishers they want to distribute their offers and publishers can choose which advertisers they want to promote. Unless inappropriate content is displayed or fraudulent activity is occurring, we let the marketplace (advertisers & publishers) decide which offers are the most compelling and how those offers are most effectively distributed – i.e., PPC, SEO, coupons, content, loyalty, etc. Our marketplace encourages innovation, but is also a quick judge in the potential success of an offer or promotional method.
You guys just hate IZEA, don’t try cover it up with cliché arguments