Legal to bill companies for Stealing Ad Space?

Discussion in 'Legal Issues' started by grobar, Nov 24, 2009.

  1. #1
    I run a forum.

    Companies join that forum, and post advertisements.

    Those advertisements are unwelcome, and this policy is clearly stated in numerous areas, including the post page.

    Question - If I clearly state that they will be billed for all ad space used, then can I invoice them? If they don't pay, can I send the account to collections?

    It is theft. My product is my ad space. When someone consumes it, they are stealing good that I have for sale. It's no different than me going into a store and stealing a loaf of bread.

    I know it sounds crazy, but help me put some context/framework around this or understand it better?
     
    grobar, Nov 24, 2009 IP
  2. mjewel

    mjewel Prominent Member

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    #2
    The problem is that you have no way of easily proving that the company placed those ads. A competitor or someone else could have done it. I doubt any collection agency would take those types of accounts - and the negative backlash would probably multiply your problem 10 fold.

    You should either use moderators like DigitalPoint does, disable html, or block certain urls from being able to be posted. Having people spam your forum is a problem all forum owners face.
     
    mjewel, Nov 24, 2009 IP
  3. lcwadminbj

    lcwadminbj Peon

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    #3
    I take it you are referring to spam posting, if so then I personally think you have no chance of collecting.

    What you can do especially if the urls have referral ids. is report the spammer directly to the company concerned, and try to get the spammers account terminated.
    You must of course have it in your terms of service that spamers will be reported.

    Your other alternative is to ban the spammer and also ban their ip address.
    These facilities are available in the administration area of any good forum script.
    Also as mjewel said you need to go through all the facilities you have in your administration area and beef up all the things you can.

    Apart from that strong moderation and removal of spam posts is the only other way to do it.
     
    lcwadminbj, Nov 25, 2009 IP
  4. greenstefan

    greenstefan Peon

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    #4
    I had the same problem on the WiMAX equipment forum which I've owned some time ago. Some companies have registered only for sending an offers. Of course they weren't interested in paid adversitement on my forum.

    So I've called forum "free forum service" and some form of "agreement" was shown to every user during registration. Four of seven companies used the company address for registration so I had them catched: 24'th paragraph of the inital "agreement" had a part about paying for every link to the commercial page if it was posted by this company - about $5000 per every link/month.

    After two months I've send a formal document to them, reminding them about the payment. And then I've asked if they would like to advertise for $100 per month. All of them have agreed :)
     
    greenstefan, Nov 25, 2009 IP
  5. fathom

    fathom Well-Known Member

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    #5
    You have an open forum and you leave it up to the user to do as they wish with their account in advance of your actions.

    Close the forum to open registration and you won't have any unwanted ads.
     
    fathom, Nov 25, 2009 IP