CJ Settlement case

w00t!

maybe its our turn to rob em back lol

if nt abt robbing our refferal $$, atleast for leaking the db & leaving our privacy at stake

 

What do you mean sharea sale hasn't paid you? Shareasale is awesome network, much better than Commission junction.

 

So the thing is real. What are people going to do? Sign up or refuse? What could be the consequences of either choice considering any possible outcome?

Any concrete ideas?

 

Dont do anything. Just wait for payment to automatically go to CJ account. Official hearing in January 09 so payments probably not till a month or two after that at least.

I just skimmed the payout details, but there is 1 million dollars they are going to pool out to all registered CJ members (still active or not). How much you earn is 1% of the average based on how much CJ earnings you were earning during this time. So the more you earned the bigger payout you will receive from the settlement. I figure MOST of the money is being made by the TOP 30,000 affiliates out of the 300,000 signed up (just a educated guess ). Most of the 300,000 never make much money so probably 30,000 are making most of it. 1 million divided by 30,000 comes out to 33 dollars a person . so even if your among the top 10 percentile of earners you get 33 bucks. Plus I think there is lawyers fees that take a huge chunk of that 1million pool so it will be far less than even that. So most of us shouldn't expect more than a few bucks from the settlement, so don't get your hopes up high.

 

I stopped running many a campaigns because
of my suspicions, which are now substantiated.

 

Hey guys, I blogged about this on July 6th.
You should read the 5 Star blog to stay on top of the news.

The $1 million is nothing, just a drop in the bucket for CJ and after legal fees doesn't leave much to pay out to affiliates.

The more important thing in my opinion is the part of the settlement that forces increased detection,
reporting and prevention of third party software or adware that hijacks affiliate's clicks and revenue on CJ.

Here is more very important information about it.
ValueClick/CJ $1 Million Adware Class Action Lawsuit

 

Doesn't html redirects prevent this kind of this malicious hijacking of commissions?

 

I received the same email and I wasn't surprised. I have always had suspicions that something was wrong with there tracking. It should be fun to see what happens. I don't think that we will get a lot of money, but I think that this will change the affiliate programs overall for the good.

 

I haven't received an email, and I'm definitely in the class criteria.

I hosted CJ's banners and stuff for years and never received a penny. I haven't gotten notified of any settlement, and I'm in the same situation where I asked them to explain that to me. My account was terminated. And their banners took hours and hours to research, select, set up and maintain. I probably had over 30 hours of work in our site just setting up their links.

Just to note, I get checks regularly from Google for the same spaces I used for CJ's stuff. We receive thousands per year for these ads. Our own in-house sales and subscriptions also produce thousands of dollars per year. Yet not one penny from CJ's stuff.

That's like eBay. They switched, and I never saw another penny, so I removed them from my Web site.

Now I just found this thread because I noticed Yahoo! wants me to be a CJ member to become an affiliate of Yahoo!. I wanted to complain on a forum that although I like Yahoo!, I WILL NOT EVER REJOIN CJ. I bet Yahoo! is going to lose lots of potential exposure because of their use of CJ. Stoopid move.

- Webmaster, scopists.com

 

Something is wrong with your marketing skills then. I have sites getting little traffic that make money from CJ.

 

I think we have all received this email .. reviewed in unwanted emails?

 

That's my point. Everything on my site makes money, but CJ never did. That's the God's honest truth. Heck, I used to get checks from eBay until they went to CJ, then nothing at all. Not one dime. Maybe I'm hacked and pilfered, like the settlement states. If someone steals my conversions and clicks, I get deactivated. But it's still ONLY in CJ's control and there's nothing I can do to fix, catch or prosecute these people. CJ has to live up to their responsibility when they offer you an affiliation.

There's more, but I'm waiting to hear back from the attorneys, so I won't post it here yet. (BTW, my site is a professional support site for litigation support professionals.)

I own a nice two-story house, drive a Tundra and a Solstice, have six rescue dogs and a cat, work at home, am middle-aged, and my one Web site is my full-time job. My site is a professional niche support site. I still stay in the profession part-time, because it's hard to pass up the $60 bucks an hour I make.

I have decent marketing skills, which is why I HAD to leave CJ and won't trust them again.

 

No. Their notifications are a recent thing. Heck, in '04, '05, etc., there weren't many sites that provided spam filtering at all. But I have total control over my email system, and I guarantee I was never notified. That's a recent thing, notifying of deactivation. Heck, do a search and see all the plethora of people complaining in CJ forums about this same thing, even to today.

I only got into these forums today because I love AdSense from Google and I wanted to see what Yahoo!'s system had to offer. As soon as it said I had to go through Commission Junction, I bolted from the application and decided to post forum messages to dissuade people from using the Yahoo! affiliate program until they leave CJ, like eBay has. I used to get checks from eBay until they moved to CJ, then NOT ONE PENNY.

Heck, eBay should sue them too, for all the bad faith they created amongst their ad publishers (like me).

 

I think that's what the lawsuit was about. It's CJ's responsibility to protect the integrity of their own system.

Plus, I'm certain they'll pursue litigation against the hackers, so this is a cakewalk for CJ, in terms of their class settlement. I'm pretty sure I'm opting out to deal with it on my own. I don't need the 12 bucks or whatever is likely to come out of it.

But html redirect pages are just jump points, so I don't know how they help prevent this kind of thing. I'm thinking you might be referring to the affiliate IDs, which is their responsibility to keep hack-proof since they mask the IDs. It's likely that's where the hackers struck.

 

I earned ebay commissions last fall through CJ. It was actually oen of my first things I earned through CJ. Ive earned through many other CJ programs too. So your theory on CJ are false.

 

I agree that this is critical, but I hate to see "settlement" because that always means that the crook gets to keep some of their ill-gotten gains and that just chaps my butt. I'd love to just go to trial and let the jury wring their chicken**** necks. Hehe!

I had a friend who, 30 years ago, said he'd like to find something everyone would buy for ten bucks via the mail. He'd do telemarketing and infomercials to sell these things, then he would not ship any out.

He figured, if he provided a refund for everyone who asks, he'd avoid mail fraud. What's left over and unclaimed in 30 days is his to keep. At ten bucks, he figured he'd make 30 percent because lots of people lose track of ten bucks.

He's brilliant, but it's illegal to have this intent. It's called fraud.

The million bucks is truly nothing, and CJ's insurance company will likely have to pay it. The crooks walk.

To heck with CJ. I won't ever deal with them again. This means I'll stay with Google but not add Yahoo! content to my site until they leave CJ.

 

Speaking of scammers, Google is the worst scammer ever. I find it funny you are cheerleading Google of all things to compare to CJ.

 

strangeit ... only one person who has not received this mail? what I received in my two accounts cj ... and several close friends also received what .. strange he is the unique person not receive it?

 

I'm not worried about not receiving the email, but I'll be watching my snail mail for the "real" notification packet to arrive.

In the meantime, I've contacted plaintiffs' law firm about some other details so I should be able to follow up easily. I'm just not sure I want to join such a small settlement. I'd rather wait for another action to join later, I think. This is mainly because I don't want to sign any releases for CJ that would prevent joining another lawsuit in the future. That million bucks is probably going to be split up between 200,000 current and former publishers and advertisers. If I can find out from the law firm how many plaintiffs are represented by the class, I'll post a followup here in this thread.

And BTW, if Google is so lousy compared to CJ, how is it lousy to receive thousands of dollars deposited into my bank account by Google versus NOT ONE PENNY from CJ? I don't understand. CJ is better, if you don't want to be paid.

And of course CJ can't steal from everyone or they'd get caught instantly. They probably act like the Wraith from Stargate and cull the victims selectively so as to not kill the herd. I know people get paid by CJ but the point is, NOT EVERYONE DOES. I know I haven't, and it's ridiculous to assume such a huge difference in performance. I also know I'm not alone, because you can Google the CJ forums and there are many people in my boat.

 

I got this as well, did anyone check the court records to see if anythings been filed against CJ?