Is skimming using hosted galleries thumbs legal?

[MrMaryLou]

Well with the interest in another thread this brings up an important issue is the use of hosted gallery thumbs or any content of a submitted or added gallery legal to use for skimming ?

[Ramster]

Legal?
Probably not if you want to be technical.

Ok to do?
Of course! Programs all want the sales they get from those skimming tgp thumb sites. Let's face it. They make sales. Even though they skim some hits to other sites (trades) they do make sales for the program.

Torn's issue was more than that. A high skim site combined with a popup on entry that set off Norton.

[Linkster]

Id like to hear from the content producers that have contracts with the sponsors that make hosted galleries
I think you will find that sponsors may have a problem with it if pushed as well - just no one has brought up the issue before

[MrMaryLou]

I agree linkster btw turn on your ICQ LOL

[Cleo]

As many of you know I do have a small TGP. It does have a light skim on its new gallery and a lot of skim in its archives. In fact I run this TGP mostly as a traffic source for my traffic script.

My sponsor hosted stuff is links mixed in with my gallery listings and mostly because they are pulled from a different database they do not have a skim on them.

Why am I mentioning all of this… because now that I think about it would be a scam to have "Click Here for Kat Vixen" and get sent to something else. But if you just have generic links for galleries then I don't see a problem with it at all.

I would say having hosted stuff with thumb previews being skimmed would be a big no no.

[Useless]

You know, this thread and the angry thread that spawned this thread have given me a new view of traffic trading. I had never really considered it from a submitter's view or that of a FHG producer's either.
Here are my thoughts.
A light skim can be beneficial to a TGP and its trading partners. Heavy skims are good for no one. The fools who use heavy skims are tricked in to believing that they have 100k in daily traffic. Well, shut that script down for a couple of days. How much do you have now that everyone else's scripts halted sending you hits because your trade had stopped? Not a whole lot of bookmarks there, huh? Who wants to bookmark a heavy skim site? What you had was 100k in daily empty hits. Sure, non-skim to low-skim TGPs take a long time to build traffic, but they bring in bookmarks and are better earners. Not too mention the fact that they don't piss anyone off.

[Stouch]

I guess it boils down to the sponsors desire for traffic/sales at the end of the day. Most that offer free hosted galleries dont mind as they see the benefits in the long term $$.

[Chop Smith]

I think this is determined by the contract between the sponsor and the affiliate - the TOS. Mine says nothing about using my promotional material to skim, but it does state that my promotional material can not be used with Any program, file, data stream, or other material which contains viruses, worms, "Trojan Horses," or any other destructive feature, regardless of whether or not damage is intended, which may cause damage to any computer equipment, loss or corruption of data or programs, or inconvenience to any person. So if you use my content to link to something that 'sets Norton off', then your are in violation of my TOS.

About skimming - it is a fact in TGPing. Who am I to tell these guys how to run their show? The fact is that I want their traffic, I need their traffic and if they allow xx% of the hits thru to my hosted galleries and make me some sales then I am going to keep smiling.

So if a surfer clicks on a link to my hosted gallery at Dr B's and instead is sent to Tommy's, let's hope that Tommy has a link to some of my stuff and that it is not my turn to be traded off. It is a numbers game, but isn't all traffic?

[Jason]

I find this question to be pretty strange. Of course, everyone is talking about another thread that spawned this discussion and I missed out on that one.

I run a couple of 100k+/day tgp's and I can say I would be more than happy to pull any hosted gallery out of my rotation if a sponsor though it "illegal" or even it if it were legal and it just rubbed them the wrong way.

Everyone wants traffic, that's how we make money (all of us, yes, it's true).

Skimming is the only way a tgp will work these days. There's nothing more I would love to do than slap up a couple hard links and watch my traffic grow, but that isn't how it's going to work. The old school text link tgp's that have the great quality traffic, aren't willing to trade links with a newbie site, in fact, they aren't willing to trade period for the most part. There's a circle of about 20 of them that feed into each other and that's that. No outsiders allowed.

I'm not going to name names, but it's very clear that some of the posts in here are from people who know nothing about tgp's and how to build one. Having bookmarkers rocks, no two ways about it. But if you are only getting 2500 uniques/day... and you can HOPE for 1:2500 bookmark ratio... that is still shit traffic and you may as well take the sites down.

Remember, the purpose of TGP's aren't to give surfers enough free content to finish the job, it's to give them enough to get them started then get them to a point where they buy.

One way of doing that is to add some small annoyances like traffic redirects. I realize that there are some people here from the "Surfers Union for Hassle Free Porn" and think that sucks, but why buy the cow if the milk is free?

Now, I have a very small skim on my sites, I don't like CJ's but I understand them. Installing anything is bullshit, and I don't tolerate that at all.

If you find that some site owners are from the "Surfers Union for Hassle Free Porn" and don't like tgp's (thumb preview or text) using their content/hosted galleries for those sites. Please contact me via icq 19-530-65 and i'll be sure to alert all my friends. I get the feeling that the guys from nastydollars won't be beating down our doors to remove their sites.....

as i said... weird question but i'm not up to date on the history of the topic

[Jason]

can someone give me a link to the thread that inspired this one?

[Chop Smith]

Originally posted by Jason
can someone give me a link to the thread that inspired this one?

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...threadid=10009

[DangerDave]

Jason,

It would have been a really good idea to read the other thread before posting here... the question here is very specific.. and I know I dont need a lecture on CJ TGPs.

Everyone wants traffic, that's how we make money (all of us, yes, it's true).

Big difference! My traffic comes to me because "they want to be there" yours is forced

Skimming is the only way a tgp will work these days.

Wrong! That is so NOT true.. but seems to be a myth subscribed to by CJTGP'ers to justify their practices.

There's a circle of about 20 of them that feed into each other and that's that. No outsiders allowed.

? Maybe that is because "you" wil jerk their traffic around and piss the surfer off.

I'm not going to name names, but it's very clear that some of the posts in here are from people who know nothing about tgp's and how to build one

- No.. building a TGP "your way" is ONE way to do it.. There are others and all are legitimate.

But if you are only getting 2500 uniques/day... .<snip> ....you may as well take the sites down.

- Didn't you just say.. "Everyone wants traffic" - why is a smller number a reason to take a site down?

One way of doing that is to add some small annoyances like traffic redirects. I realize that there are some people here from the "Surfers Union for Hassle Free Porn" and think that sucks, but why buy the cow if the milk is free?

There are "positive" way to sell to surfers, that support the market and not destroy the opinion of surfers. Negative selling only makes the market more difficult to sell to.

DD
(This is of course 'my opinion', and the "you" used is a generalisation)

[Jason]

Actually, Dave, I read the question to say that the other post brought up an issue.

If the prior thread were truly that important then I would think the author would have included that link in the thread. Since neither of us can really know what the author intended, we are left to our interpretations.

As for the rest of your post, it seems to me that this comes from a graduate of the old school tgp world. I don't know who you are, but it seems to me that either you already have old bookmarkers to work with, or friends who have old tgp's to work with. Of course, I could be wrong.

2500/day wouldn't really be worth _my_ time in approving galleries and dealing with cheaters, submitters, etc.

Clearly I've pissed you off in some way and have chosen to refrain from responding to your emphatic defensive post, in the same manner. If I insulted your mother or slapped your children with my post, I apologize.

[Jason]

I also just wanted to mention that my main site has had 142,391 hits in the last 24 hours. Those 142,391 hits have resulted in 461,346 clicks, 332880 of those clicks have gone to the gallery intended (28% skim ratio).

I started this tgp in february. I think that 28% skim is a very healthy number and i have a lot of bookmarkers. I can't imagine starting a TGP from scratch (except for perhaps 404 traffic) and getting that amount of traffic with that level of prod in just 6 months. I have also generated 7 sales off hosted galleries in the last 24 hours.

So, to return to the point of the thread, skimming the hosted galleries (as well as submitted galleries) has given me what I need to grow my traffic, which has resulted in sales that benefit both myself and the sites I promote.

7 sales that i would have not generated if I had gone with strictly a hard link trade scenario.

I will say this, if I could get away with just doing hard link trading, I would love too. In fact I have a hard link only text tgp that is my pet project. The one i hope turns into a golden goose, but it's like watching grass grow. So i just let it sit, manage link exchanges, and watch it grow... slowly (i also use archived galleries from my main site so I don't have to waste time approving galleris for such a small site ).

[Chop Smith]

Originally posted by Jason
I don't know who you are...

Jason, what rock did you crawl out from under!

[Jason]

i realize he's some sort of super star on this bbs. in the past i've only hung out at adultwebamsterinfo and gfy. i give this place a shot every 2 months.

You can get some great info here but there is a very tightly knit group of people who post here and frankly they don't seem to like opinions outside of their own. So there tends to be a lot of overmoderating and gangin up. That usually sends me running .

[MrMaryLou]

Jason no reason to run the though behind this thread was not to justify skimming one way or the other but was to see if using thumbs could cause a problem down the road with sponsors or content providers having their content used for it

[Chop Smith]

Jason, stay with us. This is a great place for info.

Say it sort gives you a cozy feeling to be close kit.

And what would the purpose be if we all agreed. As a matter of a fact, I think I might disagree with Danger Dave on this one.

[Jason]

Originally posted by MrMaryLou
Jason no reason to run the though behind this thread was not to justify skimming one way or the other but was to see if using thumbs could cause a problem down the road with sponsors or content providers having their content used for it

well, i guess if i were truly to have stuck to the subject, i guess we should have only discussed the legalities . I guess i was more discussing why a provider would enforce those legalities, were it illegal.

[Bill]

Dave ain't mad. He's way worse when he's mad. ;-}

It's a culture conflict. It's like mac and pc.

TGP guys can be plenty snooty too.

[KCat]

Originally posted by Bill
It's a culture conflict. It's like mac and pc.

TGP guys can be plenty snooty too.

Hmmmm...maybe we can have a LL vs TGP webmaster mud wrestling contest in Vegas. Rowr!

[Stouch]

Chopsmith has got the right idea here by having terms on the usage of his hosted galleries. Torn didnt have terms in place, and wasnt aware of skimming.

With regard to the use of thumbs for skimming, it seems that the majority of programs are cool with it... I know that Bangwang posted in the other thread about Silvercash (I think?) being ok with it, and a couple of owners of programs I regularly use are ok with it. As for illegality, that again is down to the program owner, but they should have terms stating thus.