I suspect right now that Google & Co are more concerned with click "arbitrage": which is when you locate keywords which are cheaper on Google (for example) than somewhere else (say Adsense), buy them on Google and then redirect visitors to an Adsense landing page, instead of the content they imagined they would reach.

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/07/...ty-update.html

It's good to see a variety of ways emerging with which to combat Zango. I just hope people don't lose sight of the reality that Zango is only one scumware company out of many and that most of the solutions to date don't offer a way to recover the income we potentially lose to scumware, because the infected surfer still cannot reach the targets we intend him to reach.

We should protect our sites to the maximum extent possible, but we also have to increase the pressure on our industry to adopt professional standards. The scumware issue surely illustrates that "ethics" is not just an abstract concept which must always play second fiddle to making money. By definition, scumware only allows a small number of people to profit while everyone else is effectively mugged and the whole of the estimated $20 billion a year which the scumware providers make is being scrubbed off affiliate and sponsor profits, because they do not create sales, only divert them.

Since 99.9% of the internet is advertising driven, how long before affiliate programs start collapsing. Advertisers wrongly paying out on type-ins, affilates sales getting ripped off, search engines getting mugged on PPC revenues. |club|

How many people are going to create, and filter traffic if there is no money to made? Time, content, bandwidth, hosting all cost $$$s.

I just asked Sparky if he knew of a way for them to change the user agent on existing installs.

And if they do, we'll just have to change some things & look into building a better system :)

While I am reasonably sure that Zango has the programming capabilities to do an auto-update, I wonder what the long term effect is. Its possible that new generations have a different identifier and older generations still bear the Zango tag.

Here's the cynical view I see of Zango.

Affiliates push a sponsor, Zango skims that sponsor and takes a % for themselves. Affiliate leaves sponsor because conversions suck. Zango no longer has anything to skim.

The long term model only works when Zango (or any scumware vendor) is able to skim traffic filtered enough to go to paying locations. It doesn't make sense for zango to pop an advertisement for Hawaiian Air when someone is surfing a site on pet adoption. Which means that they need to do context sniffing to present reasonable ads. Right now, they can target simple URL strings which doesn't require much computing power or intelligence.

If everyone knew that SponsorA was buying clicks to advertise above SponsorB, and everyone stopped advertising SponsorB because of lower conversions, it seems that somewhere along the line, SponsorA, Zango, SponsorB and the affiliate lose out.

A sponsor that is being Zangoed, sees the same number of signups, the same relative payout -- just that the distribution to the affiliates has changed.

The problem I have with most of the tried and true detection systems is that to detect scumware, you almost have to be scumware. As for zango displaying a message on top of adwaresucks.com, it just shows that they are scared that people might learn what has been installed on their machines.

The sponsor may also end up doing payouts on typein traffic. So much for viral marketing, or URL stamping as discussed in another thread.

Zango is not the real problem, the retards that buy traffic from them are.

Dealing in stolen merchandise.

If no one bought traffic from Zango then they would have to send traffic to sponsors themselves. Maybe they do that now, i don't know. If that was the case I (sponsor) would kill their account.

I've canned a few accounts when I don't like what I see.

If every sponsor did that, think how much better it would be.

When you see an affiliate doing something you don't like, can their ass!

This is the only way we can solve the problem because today it's Zango, tomorrow will be someone else, and so on.

~BV

I do think the Zango issue is worse than we can ever image. A friend called me the other day as he is running a Internet based training school and buying ad spots at Google. As it is a small market with high competition he has to pay a lot for every link hit. After hearing this, I went to Zango and bought his domain name as a keyword. No problem! ( Did not pay )
So, he pays Google and a competitor get the customer! I do hope someone at Google realize this thefts very soon! We have written a company letter to them, as emails are of no use to contact the bigger ones!

This is a GREAT post.... thanks Jim for booting that annoying guy so you guys could get back to business!

I've been trying to follow the whole Zango situation as best I can considering I am not on the technical side of the biz....

In my research, I came across this site - any idea who's behind it?

http://www.zangoblacklist.com/

The Zango theft is not the only thing out there!
 

If you have mailto:yourcompany@yourserver.net on your pages and a surfer having Google toolbar installed without modifications, he will be redirected to Google G-mail! Not to you! How many sales have you lost, do you think? Install Google toolbar and do a test!

It's hopeless, Internet will be a mess, all those criminals fighting each other to get our surfers!

By the way, I'm banned from GFY now. I was fighting AFF and Zango hard there. Reason? They said that I was blaming AFF without any proof!!
( I called the Zango use for shaving and theft )
Nice. But the funny thing is that I wrote early there (at gfy) that I was expecting to be banned. There are to many on that board doing the same thing as AFF. Now are all Zango And AFF blamers quiet at GFY! Afraid to be banned I assume.

So, any news about Zango? Have not heard anything for a while.

Great thread! Thx Jim for your updated info about the court case!
I knew about the things these guys make by the means of Zango and i'm glad they are stopped!

Just heard that Zango with their new version has found a way to get around our efforts to keep them out. Do not know if it is true. Anyone else heard anything about it?

Yes just tested with a Zango infected PC and yes, they have come up with something, because we were re-directed directly to AFF without our affiliate code. Anybode else?

It's going to far!!!!

Today I installed Zango at another computer and tested my own sites as I saw AFF traffic went down as well as the amount of zango surfers caught by my .htaccess.
I have the following .htaccess file installed:
----------------
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} zango [NC]
RewriteRule ^$ http://www.sexyads.net?rs=398&rc=zango1 [R]
----------------

On every AFF link clicked, another page show up without my affiliate codes shown. They where stolen, just like that!

Please help!!!!

***************
To make me compleatly mad this zango thing popped up when entering this forum:



This ad is served by Zango. It has been delivered for two reasons. First, you are a Zango consumer who knowingly and willingly installed our desktop advertising software onto your computer in order to access a large catalog of entertaining and useful online videos, games, music, tools and utilities. Much like television, this content is funded by advertising and is therefore free of charge to you, the consumer. Second, because all our ads are delivered by keywords, much like ads displayed in search engine results, we are able to anonymously target this specific ad to Zango consumers who have initiated some relevant connection to the Web page www.adwaresucks.com/zango/.


This ad – our ad – responds to some of the most blatantly false accusations on that page and provides you, our valued customer, with Zango’s side of the story.


Point one: Your computer is not “infected.” The Web page in question is designed to “scare the surfer,” as its “creator” has confessed (and as is probably obvious from the huge red lettering and the over-the-top nuclear radiation symbol). You, the consumer, control your PC. We at Zango have gone to great lengths to ensure that every consumer who installs our software sees, prior to installation, a fully and conspicuously disclosed plain-language notice and consent process. In addition, this process and subsequent messages and reminders all include a link for more information about Zango, including uninstall instructions.


Point two: We do not monitor your computer activities, period. Our foremost concern is for the privacy of our customers. We are committed to protecting that privacy; Zango’s desktop advertising software does not collect personally identifiable information. Ever.


Point three: We strongly “believe in your right to be informed,” but being informed requires access to fact and reality, not innuendo and scare tactics. Here’s fact and reality: Today, 200,000 consumers just like you will make the informed choice to install Zango and join our network of more than 20 million users worldwide in order to access more than 100,000 pieces of free digital content across the Web. They do so in exchange for viewing targeted advertising while anonymously searching or browsing Web sites.


We are committed to safe and ethical Best Practices and take a number of steps to notify consumers as to what our software does, how it works and how to easily uninstall Zango. To learn more about Zango or to contact us, visit www.zango.com.


Don’t like Zango? Uninstall the software. But do so only because you’ve decided to take that action after weighing the advantages and disadvantages – a calculation you can’t make based on scare tactics and misinformation. Millions of people use Zango everyday to access online videos, games, tool and utilities. We trust that you value our offering and hope that we can continue to be your online media company of choice.

Are you all scared or something?
 

OK, I was banned from GFY for fighting AFF - Zango "I had no proof!"
If you enter this thread with Zango installed a big popup appear defending Zango. See above. But: Why is it so quiet about AFF - Zango attacks?

Aff - Zango are worse than ever, pops up everywere, some sponsors are losing traffic now.
And, worst of all, AFF and Zango try to stop criticism. See Screenshot below covering a board where AFF and Zango are heavily discussed.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1.../dateboard.jpg

OBS! As you can see it is a Mozilla browser used with no Zango toolbar installed. Explorer with Zango tollbar is installed but not started in the test computer. And the language used in the popup switch depending on which country you come from. That for privacy!!

The sponsors, where their landig pages forums and affiliate login are covered by AdultFrienFinder - Zango popups, increase daily. Some are spared, you can maybe guess why?

Is zango still alive and kicking? I thought this was all done after they got nailed in court or is this whole thread about dealing with people who have a now obsolete software package? All the news articles that I see pretty much show that they've been hammered into practical non-existence (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=zango).

That hit was for the auto-installs. The rip-off side hasn't been addressed directly yet!

I'm really disappointed that I haven't seen any sponsors come forward on this issue yet.|confused|

Google Community
 

I wrote this in the Google Community but no one has responded yet.


"Theft from adwords
Theft of adwords paid clicks.
It's scum ware out there called Zango. At Zango it is possible to buy urls. Example: www.google.com. I tried to buy our own link, the one we pay for at Ad Words, and it was no problem! I tried to buy a competitors domain name as well, still no problems! In other words, you pay Google for the link hits and another person gets the visits! We wrote a letter to Google about this, but no answer. Zango has over 20 million users now and adding 200.000 new every day. It works like this: The surfer clicks your link and your page opens. But your page is covered by another page delivered by Zango. This page belongs to the highest bidder at Zango. So, if you want your page to show, you have to pay twice, first to Google, second to Zango. Zango is destroying the affiliate system as well. One example: Someone can buy the domain name www.amazon.com at Zango, and get every sale from an affiliate having a link to amazon.com! The affiliate code is changed to the highest bidders own.
The only ones with a chance to stop Zango thefts is Google and other search engines. Ban all advertising of Zango! Put all bidders at Zango in the sandbox! This is the last chance to save the whole adwords and affiliate system. So, now I'm going to bid on amazon.com at Zango and I have all possible sales from 2.000.000+ users in a box! I'm rich in no time!"

way to go guys

As long as the sponsors are using this scumware they will stay in business.
I don't understand why a company would want to screw their own affiliates. Soon they will only be getting seach engine traffic and paying for it twice http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=17675 |crazy|.

Is there a list of affiliates that are using Zango that I can boycott?|huh

Hi Greenie
1st i would like to thank you for listing my first freesite so quickly.

I just found this "ZangoToolbar" in my logs (visitor came from fuckingbeaver), so i made a search and here i am.

About your zango page:
As a surfer i'm totally immune to this type of warnings, because i've seen too many of them that were just lying about the infection and advertised some other potentially dangerous software.

I have some experience with manually removing malware so i know what your page says but if i was a silly internet newbie my first thought would be "oh shit ! someone hijacked linkorama and replaced it with his page ! and he wants me to fuck up my computer !"

What would make this page more trustworthy ?
IMHO: REFERENCES !!!
You can link to zango page on Wikipedia, to some free adware removal tool for computer challenged people and maybe even to a search on googlegroups.

more
I think it would be a good idea to tell infected surfers how it was possible to discover the infection by showing them all of their info (ip, country, user agent etc) like this page does.
Silly internet newbies think that they are 100% anonymous - they think that it is impossible to detect adware without running some adware removal app.

monro, if you still have it installed, can you show me a screencap of what it looks like with their popover warning that it's 'scare tactics'?
I'd appreciate it - I want you to send it to the email I'm going to send you on PM. Thanks!