They’ve re-branded and are giving it another go. This time as Agloco.
For those who missed them the first time around, their program makes you install a toolbar and pays you as you sirf the web. What they’re doing is showing advertisements in the toolbar and I think they’re tracking your surfing too. They’ve also got a whole pyramid scheme thing going on to make it extra enticing. If you get a whole bunch of people to subscribe and then they all get people to subscribe, you could actually stand to earn a reasonable amount.
They went bust big time way back when, but they’re owning up to that in their history section. They go on to explain why the failed and what they’ve changed since then. It’s actually an interesting read for anyone looking to learn from other people’s mistakes.
Ian // Jan 15, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Not to put too fine a point on it, but isn’t this a bit hypocritical? You were worried about the potential impact on privacy of Turnitin.com, and now you’re promoting spyware?
Incidentally, what happened to tagging your sponsored posts as sponsored?
Marc // Jan 16, 2007 at 9:33 am
Hypocritical? Not from where I stand. To me there’s a world of difference between something you go out of your way to subscribe to and are compensated for your private information/IP/whatever and something that is forced upon you with no way of opting out and that doesn’t compensate its users in any way shape or form. But I’m just one man with one opinion. If I am hypocritical in the eyes of others, I’ll have to live with that. I can’t alter the morals of others.
I’m also not sure how you read any promotion in this post. It wasn’t meant to be a promotion post, just and information one refering to a throwback that a lot of my friends and I remember from back in the day.
As for tagging the sponsored posts, that was a mistake. I make them fairly often. But I won’t get paid for a post if it’s not declared just so everyone knows. I’m not trying to do it on purpose and it’s even against the TOS of the sponsors. So anytime that happens, it’s actually a genuine mistake.
Ian // Jan 16, 2007 at 10:23 am
Sorry, I just assumed it was sponsored, given the subject matter. I guess that’s my beef with PayPerPost, it makes it difficult to determine what’s real and what’s not. I read promotion into it because you were talking about … well, spyware, and making money off a pyramid scheme.
I see little difference between the two because I’m not sure how many installs will actually be by consenting users, and how many will have it bundled with something else, or just dropped on their machine. Then again, I didn’t actually read the linked site, so I could be entirely off base.
There was no offense intended.
Marc // Jan 16, 2007 at 11:24 am
That’s no problem at all. If I was a bit more careful and didn’t forget to have the sponsored tag at the start, it would have been clearer.
The way their business model worked, you had to seek it out. They had no problem at all drawing more users than they could handle using that model. For those reasons I don’t see it being bundled with other things. But the point you raise is a fair one. If they did consent to people budling it in with other software, which would obfuscate it to most users, I would also have more of a problem with it.
But to date, they’re playing well inside the lines so I have no problem talking about them and linking to them.
PPP does make things tougher on readers. I definitely concede that point. But this blog has always been a test bed for me. I’m thrilled that people are reading and interested and am trying to balance out the pros and cons for readers while still allowing me to use this as a testing platform.
One thing that should help is that I’ve asked James to remove my feed from Planet. I think that will benefit that community a lot. That way only the broader audience won’t be subject to this confusion.