GPWA’s Formal Position on the use of Predatory Advertising

**VPJunkie** · 17 December 2002, 11:48 am

The Gambling Portal Webmasters Association is taking a formal position against the use of Predatory Advertising by the casinos we do business with. We are aware that several portals have already spoken out against this, and we’re encouraging all non-member gambling portals to join us in this stand against the theft of our business.

Predatory Advertising uses popups bought from and distributed through software like Gator, WhenU, and numerous others, to target and steal gambling traffic right out from under us. In some cases, the popup will appear over our sites in an attempt to whisk the visitor away to their casino; in others, even more predatory, the popup will wait until our visitor has clicked through on a link to a casino, then the popup will appear over the casino we’ve sent them to. In one screenshot taken this last week, a visitor had clicked through to English Harbour, when a popup for Bella Vegas appeared over English Harbour’s bonus offer, offering the visitor $20 free, no deposit required, if they clicked here immediately.

This is outright theft. The casinos that are using it are arguing that they’re stealing traffic from the other casinos, not from us. But in their efforts to steal from each other, they’re also stealing from us; and some of the main perpetrators are some of our largest casino clients.

The use of predatory advertising is being used across the board in all areas of commerce on the internet. While there have been, and continue to be, lawsuits against it in some countries, this issue may never be resolved on the legal front. Scumware, the slang term for it, is downloaded freely and covertly with other programs, and many times the surfer isn’t even aware they have installed it on their computer. Morpheus, Kazaa, HotBar, Gator ?these are just a few of the primary distributors of this software.

While we cannot fight this on all fronts, we can fight this in our industry by stopping the purchasers of this form of advertising. The GPWA has already received word from several casinos that they either don’t use it now, or will be stopping when their current campaign runs out.

We intend to fully fight this at many different levels, and are encouraging all portal owners to join forces with us as this affects us all, no matter how you do business with the casinos. The methods we’re going to start with are;

1. Education of the consumer through notices/popups on our sites, letting them know they have scumware on their computers, and that this scumware is tracking and recording their internet usage. Our notices will contain information and directions on how to remove it.

2. Negotiations with the casinos that are using it. It appears that the software used for the popups is able to target where the popup will occur. If they want to use it in non-gambling industries, so be it. But they need to stop using it against us, their best sources of business.

3. Rewarding the casinos that are not using it, or agree to stop using it, by giving them the prominent space on our sites. Their refusal to use this form of unethical marketing needs to be rewarded.

These will be our first steps. Hopefully, they’ll be enough. The online casinos need to realize that we are their best and cheapest source of business, and give us the respect that we work so hard to earn.

**Chrysalis** · 17 December 2002, 12:08 pm

I would suggest that you make this the 5th topic of the Freshman forum, and put it right at the top...then all can find it easily.

marc

Thread: GPWA’s Formal Position on the use of Predatory Advertising

LinkBack

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display

GPWA’s Formal Position on the use of Predatory Advertising

Posting Permissions