Just five days ago Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said mobile subscriptions, among other scammy offers, would be removed from Zynga’s popular Facebook and MySpace games. “We have also removed all mobile ads until we see any that offer clear user value,” he said.
So we were surprised yesterday to see a screen shot clearly showing a mobile subscription ad in a post on InsideSocialGames about the launch of a new Zynga game, FishVille.
I went to the game to check myself, but those mobile ads weren’t there. I assumed they had quickly been taken down, or there was some other reasonable explanation.
They weren’t taken down though. Or rather, they were, but just for me. Other users were still seeing the same mobile ads. And the filtering was clearly directed at me, since I logged in on the same IP address with a friends account and saw the ads. I held a laptop showing the ads up next to my screen that didn’t show the ads and took a picture:
Is Zynga intentionally blocking ads to journalists and bloggers that have criticized them for the practice, while leaving them up for everyone else? More on that in a minute.
The ads, which have now been removed after I emailed Zynga, are exactly the same as before, and they are the main reason I started the whole series of posts on social games – see our ScamVille post and related updates.
These ads clearly violate Facebook’s terms and conditions. They don’t state on the offer page that the user is required to enter into a $10 – $20/month mobile subscription, and there is no opt in by the user before entering in personal information. And they also violate the rules in other minor ways, like having auto-playing video and audio in the ads.
There’s an image at the bottom of the post showing just the mobile offers that were up on Zynga’s games until earlier today when we asked them about this. All of these violate Facebook’s existing terms, and any normal human being would consider them scams. And none of these should be there given Zynga’s promise to take down all mobile offers.
Since most people have never experienced one of these ads to understand just what we’re talking about, I made a video. After ten minutes I had been asked to subscribe to 5 or 6 separate mobile subscriptions, had been asked for my birthday, and had been asked to enter in my email address. Even after all that I hadn’t earned the originally promised coins, and abandoned the effort (getting users to abandon these offers part way through is its own business model, referred to as “breakage”). Here’s the video:
What’s disheartening to me isn’t that Zynga put the mobile ads back up, or even that appear to have selectively blocked me so that I don’t personally see the ads. Their motivations are quite clear. What’s really disappointing is that Facebook, even after promising to enforce their rules, continues to just turn a blind eye to this stuff. I know Facebook hates the negative press, but I am really starting to think that they couldn’t care less about their users getting scammed.
In the last few days the industry really started to make the right moves and I thought this was a problem that would soon be solved. But then I realized that as much users hate being scammed, and as much as the press is willing to put the pressure on (both Time and Newsweek are pointing the finger at Facebook), there may just be too much money at stake for any meaningful self regulation to occur.
We await official comments from Zynga and Facebook.
Update: From Zynga “We asked all offer provider networks to remove the mobile category. Upon learning today that one provider was still showing 6 ads, we asked them to remove these too. They told us they hadn’t realized this was still in their testing queue and immediately removed them.”
Update 2: DoubleDing, the offer provider in this case, responds to this post and denies any filtering of ads. Full email from the DoubleDing President is here.
i officially hate them now.
Yeah, I do too. And I don’t even have a Facebook account.
you should.. the facebook fanpage has some really good viral tools built in.. saying you don’t have an fb page is like saying you are a complete idiot when it comes to marketing…
That’s probably the most retarded thing I’ve heard all week. Facebook is just a tiny and often unnecessary part of online marketing, let alone marketing as a whole.
TV, print, online. That’s the triumvirate. In addition online spend is going up but its still not trumping the other two. If you call someone a marketing idiot you might want to do it for reasons of skill and not what mediums he chooses to use in his private life. You, for example, would probably call me a complete retards since: I don’t subscribe to print magazine or newspapers, I don’t have TV and I don’t have twitter. Yet… I have MBA and Psych degrees so I probably understand marketing better than you ever will.
Think before you type, it makes you seem like less of an “idiot”
OMG, how dare you ignore the facebook ad platform?! You are clearly stealing the Internet.
Bad Internet dude, bad.
San Dimas High School Marketing Rules!
wow a psych degree and an MBA from phoenix online! what an internet scholar we have!
Re Update. If Zynga are saying they thought these ads weren’t being shown any more, what possible need was there to block Arrington? Doesn’t make sense.
Thanks,
here’s mark pincus caught running gambling ads on zynga’s games, admitting it and being taken down by facebook:
http://bit.ly/1fYXOm
the man is an unstoppable spam machine
think about it before praising his business again
Seriously, Mike, put it to bed. Your opinion means nothing.
Mike, your discovery excellent. The world will be a better place if Mike keep discovering and investigating to the bottom of it.
Now what, now Mike discover it, every body just block all scammy stuff in one month. Then later once the news die down repeat it again. take cover now before being shot.
seriously, mike, keep it coming, you’re doing an awesome service by keeping the light shining on them. what a bunch of liars. keep up the great work!
Yeah keep it coming Mike. Dont listen to the idiotic comment from Jay Co.
get used to it…new age scamming is nascent.
ur not mad that they selected blocked you? if that’s true….then wow!
I’m not mad, and there may be some reasonable explanation. I’m just short of shocked at Facebook to be honest. Anyone could see this stuff just by logging in.
This is exactly what the other guy with the guest post said he would do on a city/business-wide scale to throw others off the scent … so it’s really not that big a surprise they would at least give it a try.
For those who didn’t read the other article with the
How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession
Cloaking: This is when you show a different page based on IP address. We and most other ad networks would geo-block northern California—showing different ads to Facebook employees than to other users around the world. One of the largest Facebook advertisers (I’m not going to out you, but you know who you are) employs this technique to this day, using a white-listed account. Our supposition is that it makes too much money for Facebook to stop him. Believe me, we have brought this to Facebook’s attention on several occasions. Here’s what this fellow does—he submits tame ads for approval, and once approved, redirects the url to the spammy page. To be fair, players like Google AdWords have had years more experience in this game to close such loopholes.
http://www.tech...ers-confession/
This is priceless… so now we understand that Zynga has no real business model….. until they find a legit way to generate real revenue from virtual goods…
Let’s just put one thing on the record here:
Bing Gordon, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
Sandy Miller, Institutional Venture Partners
Peter Thiel, Managing Partner Clarium Capital
Are active accomplices in one of the biggest scams ever generated on the web / social media, and should be held accountable with Mark Pincus.
I single them out from the Angel investors, as they take money from pension funds, who get their money from teachers/state employees, and then go and invest that money in companies that scam and bankrupt their children.
You can’t get the returns on virtual currency / goods plays that Zynga gets without scam. If they stop scam, they are just another company trying to make it out there. This is borderline legal, and the VCs should be named and put to the test so we can all stop this form further happening.
Well said. Great point about the source of the funds.
BTW I’m shocked that New York Times yesterday ran a puff piece about virtual goods and didn’t mention the scams and the controversy.
http://www.sili...king_nytime.php
NYTimes is 1 month too late …. but once they catch up with that story .. it’s game over…..
Foremski: Why are you shocked. As Dan Lyons notes, mainstream media is dying for a reason:
http://www.fake...a-is-dying.html
I’m shocked because it’s a newspaper. I’ve worked many years at newspapers and we monitored the news daily so that we could write newsworthy articles. If this was a magazine with 6 week lead times that would be different. That’s why this is a shocking lapse.
The only way I can explain it is that they need to verify the Techcrunch accusations and that takes time. But they could have bought time and held back the story for a much, much better story.
Roger that.
Arrington, you should write these names down and go after them. Take down the top layer.
While I tend to agree that VCs should invest a little more ethically, the pension fund shoudl watch what their asset classes do with their money. Most likely they don’t care. Usually in a fund risk is spread out and a tiny part of their portfolio will go to high risk asset classes like VCs. Most pension funds have very strict rules in what they’re allowed to invest in (like only highly rated securities). Many funds also go as far as to have an ehtical guideline in investing. These are the ones that should be researching the VCs portfolio companies for unethical behavior, but usually they just look at the “green” investments.
So overall its not the funds’ job to protect the people, that’s the job of government. But of course ya’ll are so anti-regulation you create these kinds of opportunities for scammy people.
Not that its so much better on the other side of the pond mind you, here we just take too long to implement regulation and also forget to recind ones that are no longer valid.
Pension Funds are called “limited partners” for a reason.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s all well and good to go after the source of the funds (and you may as well take it all the way to the top of the food chain), but it surprises me that little attention has been given to the legal frameworks that allow this sort of BS to happen. I can’t imagine someone getting away with this down under, in Europe, or anywhere outside of the US for that matter.
Sam
here here!
It’s a well known practice to get around policies of places like MySpace and Facebook.
I’m thinking that those 250 Million revenue estimates would take a huge hit if these ads changed everywhere.
I don’t see the “scam” offers on Mafia Wars any more and I’m *way* outside the loop, so I doubt my IP was blocked. They were gone right after you said that Zynga was removing them.
But the acai berry ads are on Google: http://www.goog...ch?q=acai+berry
Google and others still make huge money on “scams” and rebills. Where’s the outrage?
The difference between these ads and Google is that users get something out of it like a token, extra turns, etc. In Google ads, you simply don’t click on it as you don’t have any incentive to click it.
That’s true, but if people weren’t looking for a product they wouldn’t click. Ad networks just give a venue for the rebill offers to exist, just like the ones on FB apps.
The bigger problem here is rebills in general, which will continue to live on and just surface somewhere else.
The fact that you believe specifically searching for acai+berry is remotely analogous to the situation with these games and offers is mind blowing.
Scam offers exist everywhere online. I just used a specific search to show some that run on Google’s sponsored search. I’m just not getting why there’s so much outrage at this one location for the ads.
It’s relevant because Facebook makes millions from scammy ads and Google makes millions from the scammy ads. If there is outrage at Facebook for allowing the ads there should be at Google too for allowing deceptive ads on their network. It’s not just acai (teeth whitening, colon cleanse, work at home posting links for Google scams etc etc)
And it’s not just that the ads appear when you search for the term but they are all over the content network (ads on websites) and also appear on websites like CNN, Time, Newsweek, FOx etc via ad networks like pulse360 and adsonar etc who like Google also profit from the ad revenue.
Hooper: You are completely lost. Good luck.
I don’t know how you’re shocked by this. What do you expect? They are making SO much money from this house of cards. A few blog posts won’t take this scam down. This is like the mortgage industry circa 2005-2008.
They will find new ways to avoid Facebook’s rules and the scorn of journalists/bloggers.
Ridiculous man.. It seems Facebook is dying to earn money….
But, why just Facebook? Isn’t this as much Zynga’s fault and failure to deliver than Facebooks?
I would expect Zynga is more at fault and probably fooled Facebook with their commitment to clean the spam/scams.
You are right but facebook wait and hope self regulation because Zynga are their best client. If they take off Zynga tomorrow, it means good bye profitability…. Facebook won’t be able to self regulate this stuff because those ad networks will always geo target their victim….
Further, there’s evidence that some of these ads are linked to (password) fishing scams.
See http://video.tw...dc.comDISARMED/ for example. (do NOT enter your credentials there! It’s a fishing site!)
It’s scary, as the kind of people who fall for these stupid “IQ tests” usually also fall for fishing sites. I assume many Facebook and Twitter accounts are 0wn3d already.
Those Twitter accounts are currently being used to spread the fishing sites.
lol they tried to pull a fast one. i doubt they will remove the those ads since it brings them so much money .
loving it!
If they specifically blocked the ads when you are using your account, that’s ridiculous and deceitful. I would have to assume they gave you enough credit to do exactly what you did, and that they didn’t expect you to check in was nuts.
The only thing worse than being a shady business is, being one who is poorly attempting to manipulate the media. This is such a rookie mistake, how would they not think they would get caught doing this?
Zynga would have been better off just not taking down the ads. At least then it was possible that they were trying to figure out what to do about the ads. But when you try and hide the ads from media personnel accounts like Arrington’s. This just tells me that they understand what they were doing was wrong, but don’t want media attention for it…
right…. it’s game over for Zynga … when you bring media attention like that with the word scam… FTC won’t be far away……
yes, but, the actual root of the problem isn’t the game developers – although they can make a stand – it’s the mainstream ad/affiliate networks that let these scam sites operate on their networks that need the real kick in the pants.
You need to give them little more time. Things will not change overnight.
Yeah, right? Zynga only asked their partners the other day, and some people don’t check their email every day…plus it’s a weekend! Totally understandable. It’s not like Zynga can handle their own business by themselves, after all.
Oh, to see a copy of the “request” that Zynga made to their partner/suppliers.
Yup. You can’t overnight figure out another revenue source from Incentive Offers. In fact, short of charging users for payment i don’t see any viable revenue model.
now it’s clear they don’t have a real business model until they find a way to sell virtual good directly to user….
funny how things changed overnight for arrington but just not everyone else? you’re being too nice.
Jeez… I knew we were too quick to pat Mark, AT, Zynga, and the crew on the back. They’re known throughout the industry for their devious ways, heck Mark got caught on video on the last post admitting it. I think there’s too much at risk… and here’s why. Their entire model is a huge virality loop… with each leg in the loop vital to their business. You kick a leg or two out and we may find that Zynga is a stack of cards.
1) Acquire user via FB ad (or FB spam)
2) Pump user through game
3) Spam crap out of users friends using current FB distribution points
4) Earn significant $ via scams (shown above)
5) Spend ~$50m a year on FB self serve ads
6) back to step 1
It’s one giant loop, and worked to perfection nets a ‘virality coefficient’ >= 1. Of course not all revenue is obtained from scams and not all users are obtained from FB ads… but a significant portion is and given how leveraged their loop is this could have significant consequences.
So two weeks ago Facebook has reported big changes to spamming distribution channel… 1 leg of Zynga loop gets cut in half.
If finally FB regulates on the spam, the revenue leg gets cut by 1/3.
Keep in mind their ‘viral coefficient’ is dependent on all of this loop working perfectly, so take a dent out of one or two and Zynga could be a stack of cards coming down.
true. Zynga will have to change its business model. This likely means that gamers will have to pay (more).
Yes, and if FB is reliant on Zanga and other ’scammy’ companies for revenue (and I strongly suspect they are) then they will also collapse once the scamming stops.
It’s scary for Facebook… when your best client is not 100% legit…. The next move for facebook… find new and stable business model for their developer or it’s game over…
Wow Apple may not be perfect but at least they help their develper with new business model opportunity…
It will be a very good day when the Zynga house of cards comes a tumblin’ down. The audacity, the lies, the perpetual scams, the greed, all have to stop. Preying on people who play their games (especially kids) is criminal. I always wonder how criminals sleep at night knowing what damage they have done to peoples lives. RIP Zynga.
Also note it’s widely known they’re looking to IPO (from various sources) or get acquired. I don’t believe they’re trying to build this business for the long run (unlike Facebook)… I think the founders known the long term viability of their model is in question and want liquidity asap.
Good catch Mike. Really interesting series.
at the 9:00 minute mark you notice that they are carriers listed below. (Sprint oddly enough isnt there). In order to become billable on a carrier doesnt the carrier need to check you out? How did these carriers ok this content to be billed $10-20 a month? Doesnt that cause more customer service complaints of a random-ass monthly charges?
Carriers are rarely looped in, those logos are placed there to increase the validity of the offer itself. Carrier gets 33% of whatever charge you bill through mobile so they are profiting from it anyway.
A lot of times when you call in to try to cancel an offer with a 3rd party, they will tell you that they can’t do it and you have to handle it yourself. You are pretty much dead in the water, until you change your number.
…..so then aren’t the carriers the one’s failing to stop these scams (and not facebook)?
here’s another way of looking at it, but take note: The carriers are receiving a profit from these scams (33%) and therefore allow it to continue. They can easily stop it since no one in their right mind would pay $20+ a month for whatever crap they offer, and is Zynga and other can thus be considered an obvious scam.
Maybe Facebook isn’t the real corporate enemy. It’s the cellular carriers themselves, blatantly neglecting to block the scam companies from auto-charging a user’s cell phone bill.
**not going to email TC, but i’ll write it in caps to grab their attention: TIPS@TECHCRUNCH.COM**
Your last few statements are probably as close to the truth as there can be. As they often say in movies…follow the money trail.
I might argue that if you are dumb enough to click on some of those ad’s you deserve to be scammed? Farm IQ? Really. I LOL’d.
But violations ought to be enforced by FB. Again, follow the money.
Its children that are getting scammed…
You gotta think though Travis, there’s a number of under-educated people playing that game. My 12 year old niece is highly addicted to it and until my sister assured me that Emma doesn’t have built-in access to CC info, I’m sure she was following the rabbit hole.
The thing that gets me is that people, even in this day and age, are still being ripped off by things like this. How do people even get roped into this stuff? Anything that charges you $10 to $20 per month for something that isn’t even remotely worth that much, is not worth it. The games are crap. The only reason they exist is to pedal Zynga’s primary goal, which is to make money. Facebook turns a blind eye because they’re obviously getting some sort of kick back from Zynga. It’s like everything else. If there’s money involved, nobody is going to pull the plug. Scam or not.
Have you played any MMORPG lately? Quite a few of the newer ones are free to play and you pay for in game stuff. People spend crazy amount of money in them. Some of my friends run such an outfit and they are very happy that changing a color of a shield gets quite a bit of return customer.
Once again guys, it’s kids that they are going after.
…12 y/o Billy puts in his mom’s cell phone # to get the “currency” and poor mommy doesn’t notice she’s being billed $20 monthly until months later (if ever, for that matter).
Cell phone numbers should come with CVC codes. That would prevent all of this stuff.
Andre, you’re right. As I’ve mentioned before on other posts on this topic. Kids convert. The younger the demographic, the easier it is convert for almost any offer.
For example, you might think it’s the 30 something housewife who falls for the diet scam. Teenage girls are the low hanging fruit. Cheaper and easier to convert.
I seriously DO NOT BELIEVE that Zynga is a viable business unless it uses these scam techniques. They are going to resist this by going further underground or probably try to lay low for a while until the heat is off and hope for Arrington to lose interest.
I think it is important to note that Zynga “states” that 1/3 of their revenues come from these scam offers. They are a private company and given their track record – I think they could be coming in a little light with that number.
These scams could easily be 50% – 75% of their revenues. I personally do not know anyone who has spent real money on any of their apps/games.
Me either. Weird. These people are like the “bigfoot” of the internet. Rumored to exist, but never documented. Then again I dont know what my mom is clicking on.
no they exist and they are very much real. they are students, children, teenagers, people who don’t think of their actions…and old old people who still think they are hip or in the know. i got scammed through one of these things. it was a tv game show (all ads mostly) and they have an in studio winner and then someone nationwide can also win. i called in from my house account and my dads cellphone. for five minutes listening to elevator music and inputing my answer by clicking the keypad and leaving my answer (speech) like a voice recognition, even though they had people working the phones like a call center and they would put you through to an automated system. anyways i had the right answer. i still waited 5 minutes to get put in the answering cue and then waited 5 more minutes after leaving my answer to see if i would get picked…and at the end we were billed $120. luckily for me my parent’s pay the bill (my mom). i called back with my cellphone because i felt i was being scammed and i hadn’t been smart so i wanted to make sure that nothing bad had happened because on the tv they (the hosts) would mention that it is only $1.00 to call in. okay fine. that i could pay for myself because i have that money and i also thought that maybe my parent’s wouldn’t look on it too suspiciously cause i could always say i called a long distance number by mistake. so i called them the second time on the cell which my dad pays for to cover my back and make sure that i wasn’t being a total idiot, because although the hosts/ad’s were saying almost the same things, on the ads/during the show there was some text at the bottom with large font for the part telling you you only get charged $1.00 for a call…but after that there was really really really small text that was unreadable.
this shit has been happening online for a while. scamming is the way to go. i mean if you could screw, stab, and plunder your way to the top, wouldn’t you? some people just need money. it fills their souls and comforts their conscious.
Your first paragraph was complete crap. I cannot believe I stuck around to read all that shit.
With that said, everything else you said was right. on. the. money!
Wow. Remarkable. Zynga’s contrition seemed genuine; that it was a hollow, insincere PR gambit is disappointing. How can anyone believe them at this point? I would almost prefer a company stand by their unethical but legal practices rather than facetiously claim a higher moral standard. Pincus ends up looking like a sleazeball for trying to pull a fast one like this. Amateurish and pathetic.
money, arpu for mobile could even be better. Subscription services require outside bodies to regulate, far too much money for anyone in the game to resist. Look to the UK to see how PPP have had to regulate the mobile operators and their services. Chasing services and platforms is pointless.
The government regulators should have a businessman on their side. its a pretty simple equation: Implement regulation that states operators must enforce X rule (in this case canceling billing of a 3rd party service). If operator does not cancel service on said billing cycle, step in and fine the company. The fine should be more than the revenues made by delaying or refusing to cancel the service. I say revenues specifically because then its a big kick in the nuts for the labor they spent making those revenues.
Of course this won’t happen because operators can lobby the government.
“And they also violate the rules in other minor ways, like having auto-playing video and audio in the ads.”
FWIW: the auto-playing stuff is actually okay by the Facebook rules because it’s on the landing page, not the “ad” (which is considered to be the little rectangle of text you click on to take you to the lp). It SHOULD be in the rules that it can’t be on the lps either, though, because it’s f-ing obnoxious.
also, if you didn’t get your coins or whatever, zynga didn’t get paid.
“…There is no opt in by the user before entering in personal information.”
The user IS asked to opt into the subscription service (3:25).
You’re supposed to opt-in whenever you submit personal information, which happened on the previous page without an opt-in.
HEY YOUUU! ARE YOU A GENIUS?
No, an employee.
I can confirm that ADs were NOT there when i checked yesterday in Mafia Wars. When I try now, Mafia Wars is down (suspicious!!!)
Just checked. Only Payme thru mobiie option is available. ADs which were once used to be there is not available now. Only for Mafia Wars. Dont know about others.
To be quiet honest, I advertise a lot on facebook. They recently started allowing mobile/ringtones/iq type ads again, not sure why but they are allowing them again. (I’m talking about the self serve ad platform not the apps).
Hey Bryn, Just checked your blog, looks like you promote every scam in the book.
Hey Jay, actually quiet the contrary.
Bryn, stop, don’t be a hypocrite. You KNOW you promote scams bro.
Maybe grow some balls and use your real name /link to your blog or facebook profile, hell even a twitter account. You have no clue what I promote, talk all the shit you want and hide behind your computer some more.
Oh come on!!! Look at the networks you deal with. What offers do you run? This ecosystem of slimy bottom feeders needs to be stamped out- they prey on children. This guy tries to justify himself on his blog by arguing that he peddles Adware rather than Spyware. That’s like arguing the merits of theft over assault. Spyware, adware, none of these terms are very relevant. They’re all just late ’90s buzzwords.
“Bryn Youngblut – Small Time Scammer”
…thanks for adding to the conversation.
Go to wickedfire forums ( http://www.wickedfire.com/ ) and you will find Bryn and all his buddies discussing how they “promote every scam in the book”
Sorry to bust your bubble on this little bandwagon we got going on here about my original comment but I rarely even post on wickedfire nor agree with what 99% of those idiots talk about. I love when people talk shit and have no clue what they are talking about.
If you’re not running scams that are easy to replicate by scammy competitors, then how about a little transparency and illuminate us with the value proposition you bring to your customers.
wow nuts. really scared on how fb is going to crack down, because I am SURE that they will eventually. They may just start blocking apps again as they did when they were cracking down on the banner side. for now I am rotating my offer wall between rockyou and adparlor, as they seem to be quite compliant. nervous….
They KNOWINGLY block the Facebook IP range from seeing the advertisements and content that are in violation of the Facebook TOS.
corp.facebook.com hostnames will never see the same content. Try some spoofing. See for yourself.
If they block Arrington then of course they block Facebook. No brainer.
Mmm,
But FB are still fully aware that these Ads/Scams are running as:
a) Its impossible to believe that not one of their 900+ employees hasn’t logged into FaceBook from home or outside the corp.facebook domain at any point.
b) Likewise, they must have looked into how their biggest revenue generator was generating so much revenue
I DON’T SEE THE MOBILE ADS. AND IF YOU BREAK MAFIA WARS WE WILL REVOLT.
Mike,
On that quiz you were taking there’s a little link that allows you to ‘No thanks, please show me the next scam (offer)’. After LITERALLY a few dozen more offers of subscriptions sets (they offer you 10-25 links that give ‘offers’, if you select one, select no thanks for the rest, it will bring up that offer, at which point you can check no thank you, I’m not interested, and they’ll give you the next set of offers) they’ll eventually give you the ‘quiz’ results, at which point they STILL will not award coins/currency to you; you’ll have to submit an offerpal ticket to get the currency situation rectified. If you’d like more information in regards to working around these scammy offers or my experiences with them, I’d be more than happy to share.
Jason
Michael
Now that you have been blatantly lied to, it seems that your crusade has been elevated to a mission.
As I mentioned previously, we need a district attorney trying to make some hay or a politician to demagogue this thing.
We need Joint and Several Liability so Facebook, the carriers and the gaming company are legally liable.
It will be extremely hilarious if Michael manages to take down Zynga. If he can get Facebook and Myspace to enforce Zynga to get rid of incentive ads, i think Zynga can be knocked out of the IPO race. Once Zynga can’t IPO, they are going to just wither slowly. No more pump and dump.
Lol, here’s what should happen:
“Zynga, you’re a great company but we have some concerns. We would like to buy you for $500m before markdowns”
“Wow, that’s great, what markdowns?”
“Well, Considering the majority of your revenue comes from ads that are unsustainable, we will remove those from the equations. Your company is now worth $200m to us.”
“Well I guess… we have no other choice so $200m is still good”
“We’re not done yet. Due to the bad faith you’ve created, we’re going to have to re-brand you in a large effort cost at least $100m after expenses and writedowns”
“Oh this hurts! I thought you said we were woth $500m”
“Lastly considering the pending class action lawsuits against you will probably lead to settlement liabilities of $180m and these have a 50% liklihood of succeeding, we’re going to have to remove another $90m from that”
“WHAT?!”
“Oh I forgot to mention, my daughter was scammed, I got pissed and called a lawyer”
“Oh…”
“So here’s $10m for your company. Would like like that in promises or tokens?”
+1
It seems that many aspects of this company are associated with dubious business practices. From stealing game ideas from other companies, to aggressively promoting/spam to users on facebook, to monetizing with scam offers.
What, Mark Pinkus is a scam artist? Who would have thunk it?
The real power behind these deceptive mobile games are the mobile subscription companies – Playphone, Dadda, Sendmemobile, etc. On the video capture you see the ‘Solow” logo – that’s Sendmemobile. Zynga is paid $$ for every customer that signs up.
Notice No Sprint? Sprint received so many customer service complaints that they severely penalized the mobile subscription companies – most of them dropped supporting Sprint – too much of a hassle.
I suspect that’s only because they were the ‘early adopters’ in the game. Also an learning curve for the scammers too.
It’s just easier for the scammers to hit other telco’s who has not caught on yet. Once they do, the scammers would have taken the profits and off loaded their ‘profitable’ companies to Mom and Pop fund managers who thinks they’ve hit the next big thing. Cue lawyers and PR
Money.
Mark is a scumbag and so are the investors. SCUMBAG!!!! Sorry. He is evil and doesnt give a sh*t.
Besides the Amazon checkout option, all ‘legit’ pay options were phone based (mobile or landline) – This is also a problem which you should discuss more (vs. mobile offers only), as there is no way in the US atleast that any adult is going to pay by landline and there is no way with the attention you have placed on mobile offers that this is a ‘test queue’ mistake as the offers should be in the ‘never again’ queue. Which offer/payment company was it?
I blame Facebook.
Surely they can innovate around this without much effort.
They have the resources and $$$ to protect their users….and yet they don’t.
Soon people will be saying mark zuckerberg is evil.
“Soon people will be saying mark zuckerberg is evil.”
Isn’t that happening (with good reason) already ?
Beacon.
Didn’t it happen long time ago?
Mark is evil
Incentive marketing works pretty well in the scamming business. Zynga should just get some in game advertising going on and follow Glam’s exquisite business model to only show premium ads.
I think that’s a good alternative to incentive offers, at least Zynga is scamming the Advertisers instead of the users and no one complains about Advertisers being scam.
That’s the name of the game, scam the advertiser drive junk traffic to pump CPM and get paid big bucks. I believe Zynga have enough CPM to achieve this.
Watch the video. I believe that users are being scammed too.
Companies like Zynga and Offerpal will ruin the marketplace for other players like Glam. But at least the next guy who figures out a solution will get the big $$$. Let hope it’s not another scam business model
? please explain more about glam
Mike just keep busting this scamers. Good work.
Thinking logically.
Why would zynga & facebook do something about scams when it is obvious both companies benefit from it?
yah, as long as they profit, they dont give a f about the fact that they are scamming our aunts and moms and grandmothers. You gotta give Mike credit for bringing this into the light.
TIVO thumbs up to Mike.
Now the question that we should all ask now is.
If they went to this extent to try and fool the media what are they thinking/doing behind the scenes to try and keep the scam alive?
I feel sorry for the aunts,grandmothers of america. They are being targeted and they have no idea.
as interesting as this is, it is really geared to the iPhone/Facebook lemings,,, er, folks. There are plenty of Android folks out here that don’t give a f about frakkin farmville… ug. Why Apple and FB have taken over the tech community, I will never know… but the real story is how Apple censors the information that the iPhone folks get to see. And as more and more Americans get iPhones, we now have China censorship in the US of A, thanks to Apple. http://j.mp/h1SnB
Um, yeah. Which offer network was it?
It would have been great to add the subscription to your phone and see what company name appeared on your bill.
that’s a whole interesting side story. the offer network is doubleding, which Pincus is rumored to have invested in.
The actual company doing the scamming (billing your mobile) is Solow. Which is owned by SendMe Mobile. Which was founded by ex-CNET executives.
http://www.crun.../company/sendme
Outstanding investigative work, Mike.
Facebook is hot, as in “Michael Jackson Hot”, but how many people knew the Gloved One was shooting up Demerol? We didn’t now. But some people knew, and they either could not or did not stop him.
Scam money is easy money, it is addictive, and if Facebook management does not wise up, this money could be the Demerol that did them in.
Pardon the ghoulish analogy, but the smiling golden boy needs to listen to uncle Arrington, for once.
Wonderful bunch of people, isn’t it?
That’s the morals of these ‘executives’ – as soon as they see a penny within reach that can be stolen – they just can’t help it. 
Nice.
How many shell companies does SendMe Mobile need? These corporate structures are often used to obscure the money trail. SendMe has raised over $34M from some reputable VCs.
This really feels like the dot-bomb all over again. At least the public markets aren’t involved…yet.
Zynga still sucks and probably will always suck but it looks like Offerpal may genuinely be trying to clean up. Check out the two posts by “George Costanza” in this Farmville Forum thread about receiving overdue Farm Cash credits for Offerpal quizzes.
http://forums.z...ad.php?t=252357
Mike, you KNOW that Facebook cares about its users experience. This series has been useful, but you are probably taking it a bit far by suggesting that Facebook isnt’ focused on this. They are. It takes time to iron out these issues. Let’s give Zynga & Facebook a few days at least to implement changes.
You’re either an idiot, a shill, or both.
You are either an idiot, a shill, or both.
He actually has a point. I signed up to Farmville to test these scams, and actually fell in love with the game.
It’s fun. Facebook probably see this more as a way of keeping people on their site. People will now go to Facebook not just to facebook, but also to play the games, etc.
As I hinted above, I really think that it is the cellular carriers that are responsible for not stopping these scams. They hold the power. Go after them!
TIPS@TECHCRUNCH.COM
How can anyone find Farmville fun? You’re clicking on patches of grass the entire time, and every second screen is a prompt to try to get you to spam your friends or pay cash for ‘FarmCoins’
exactly the problem is the zynga games a rip off of less viral games that offer the same game play.
Given the same game play in other games, its actually the worse games for the consumers winning the most users.
Homer Simpson is really ‘Everyman’ and it is quite sad. Sadder still are the people willing to take advantage of this idiocy. “IQ Quiz” indeed.
I don’t see any Mobile offers anymore. There are no free offers either (no surprise there). Perhaps they removed them. Linking to a screenshot of it: http://www.twitpic.com/oq3a1
I forgot to mention I’m not in the US, which is probably why I don’t see mobile offers. :B
It’s a well known practice to get around policies of places like MySpace and Facebook.
I’m thinking that those 250 Million revenue estimates would take a huge hit if these ads changed everywhere.
Good job staying on top of this stuff Mike. Don’t let up on them. I’m a programmer myself and the whole selective “testing queue” is a bunch of BS. Facebbook needs to quarantine all Zynga apps for review, that may be the only wake up call that get’s them to do anything beside pay lip service to what their CEO regurgitates when he is in damage control mode.
When I said “their CEO”, I obviously meant Zynga’s CEO, not Facebook’s.
Go Get Em’ Mike! If you don’t keep these scammers in check, no one will. Facebook needs speak up about this situation and get on the offensive immediately. The longer they wait to respond effectively to this issue, the more respect they lose. Facebook WAKE UP ALREADY!!!! DO SOMETHING!!! THE LONGER YOU STAND BACK, THE STRONGER THE SCAMS ATTACK!!!!
Maybe they are testing a feature of selectively displaying ads and using you as a test subject. Remember that Facebook and Zynga has millions of users and after all these, they’ll probably want to find an alternative to get the money back in by being more selective. Mike, after all people like you wouldn’t click on the ad anyway. So they might want to be able to show it to others who will click and not to people like you who won’t. Only time will tell what they’re really up to.
sad!
It is a shame for the legit mobile companies out there… Its impossible to pay the CPA rates these scammers are paying to advertise. And they are making people fearful of all mobile offers.
These mobile CPA offers are everywhere – look how many cpa networks are promoting these offers:
http://www.find...ch=mobile&=
http://www.find...arch=cell&=
What is DoubleDing? Anybody have some clues who is behind this company?
This is when DoubleDing appeared on my radar.
http://www.insi...ith-doubleding/
Their site doesn’t seem to have much information about who is behind it and there’s no entry on crunch base.
http://www.doubleding.com/
I wouldn’t be shocked if everyone was focused on cleaning up OfferPal and either forgot about DoubleDing or thought the heat wasn’t on DoubleDing.
From http://www.8020...eaker-list-bios
Matt Handal co-founded DoubleDing in 2008. They launched in April of ’09 and are currently in super stealth, under the covers mode. DoubleDing gained notoriety when it supplanted one of the big guys on the largest facebook game a month ago. Prior to this, Matt held management and executive management positions at LowerMyBills.com, InterMix, and Zag.com.
http://www.link....com/in/mhandal
This is very interesting. The two other members listed on the incorporation documents are:
Robert Goldberg and Karyn Smith
http://www.link...=&id=139419
Robert Goldberg (if it’s the same one) is SVP, Business Operations at Zynga.
The Incorporation Documents are at:
http://esignal....ilingid=6599383
But I had to view as html to make it work. So I just googled for: matt handal doubleding
and clicked View as HTML. Is there an easy way to link to that?
Double Ding is a Double Dong with misspelled “o”.
Revenue decline from offers being cleaned up is only the 1st punch. FB changing the notification channel is next!
Hah, well if you’re talking about the viral vectors, it will be a welcome, but cold day in hell before FB allows us to disable all app notifications from our friends.
Sometime back, when they started allowing us to block certain app notifications when they occurred, it was a glaring fact that there was no global disable for these. It was then that I knew where (part of) their business model laid.
I noticed that too, you had to block each individual third-party app as the feed let you know when friends were using them, or whenever you’d get app requests. Now, absolutely everything is blasting into the feed, making FB experience intolerable. No, I don’t want a virtual cafe. No, I don’t care a hoot about who’s got what on their virtual farm. No, I don’t like the mafia in real life, why would I promote it virtually? No, I don’t care about somebody’s virtul fish tank. No, I will not ‘adopt’ any kind of virtual pet, I don’t even believe in ‘adopting’ real pets, they aren’t kids. No, I don’t care who sent a virtual cupcake to whoever. No, I won’t join any viral game to “unlock” stuff, “level up” for points, fake currency or anything else, and definitely not if it tells me to spam friends with invites. And forget about the offers, get them out of my sight, off my monitor, I don’t want to see offer walls, they are obnoxious even when they show up on otherwise good applications.
I heard that they also do the same type of ad blocking for Facebook IP addresses.
Hmm. It seems like non-offensive comments are being deleted. And, this one above me keeps getting pushed to the bottom, despite its time-stamp.
Mike do U using Ad blocker add-on for firefox? Maybe this is reason for no add on your acc?
Nope, does not seem to be related to adp.