9 ms·

FF makes money off revenue generated when you search and click on google ad. They do not replace links on content that you generate without telling you. Apple

by floodfx 16y ago

FF makes money off revenue generated when you search and click on google ad. They do not replace links on content that you generate without telling you. Apples/Oranges my friend... Personally I use posterous as my personal site and I don't appreciate this.

milkshakes 16y ago
would you rather have banner ads? they have to make their money somewhere. as long as they're not rewriting existing affiliate links, this is about as unobtrusive as it gets [edit: rewriting the links directly, instead of using a third party that necessarily obfuscates the url would be less obtrusive, but the principle is still the same]
- csomar 16y ago
  >> they have to make their money somewhere I'm not against Posterous making money online to provide me a free service. However, they should be transparent and clear about it. When I sign up, I want to be notified about this. I'm going to create a blog, publish posts, make readership and stay a good time there; so I want to know whatever thing happens in my blog and not only be surprised about it when it happens. Point 2 is that they didn't have a clear strategy how to monetize themselves (which is crucial since nothing runs for free) from the beginning. Come on, but this is like saying "Get your free domain here" and then telling you that the domain is free, but only if you pay for the hosting :(
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Yep. And for all the handwaving about transparency and 'going forward' there is no real offer of a solution for what they've done to date, in other words, they did it and intend to continue to do it. If they're serious about this they'll switch the feature off for all accounts up to the moment of modifying their terms of service, and make sure that new signups are properly informed. This so called apology seems to mix up the meanings of the words 'unobtrusive' and 'sneaky'.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Of course posterous has to make money somewhere. But they should clearly spell out in the terms of service of the free product how they intend to do that. And they should allow people to opt out of this, either by going for a premium product or by switching it off on an account-by-account basis. And given the nasty way in which this was introduced the default for all old accounts should be OFF, new accounts know presumably what they're getting in to after the terms of service are modified to reflect reality. Nobody wants to withhold income from posterous, it's just that this is about as bad as it gets when dealing with the trust of your users. I'm personally pretty pissed off about it, I did a speech here in NL not that long ago comparing Ning and Posterous and presented posterous as a very good alternative without any of the nasty tricks that Ning has used over the years to lock in their users. I wished I could eat my words now.
xelipe 16y ago
I agree. There is a big difference between getting a cut from generated search result (which is expected to change over time) and a users' blog post (which is often static after written). And don't get with the problem with will cause to the linked sites in term of Google juice.
- rantfoil 16y ago
  There's no Google impact here -- Viglink is javascript behavior. Link juice is utterly unchanged.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    The google bot is capable of running some javascript, whether link juice is unchanged or not does not really apply here because they're simply adding affiliate codes, the destination page is unchanged.
codyrobbins 16y ago
You're using their service completely free, so I don't think you are really entitled to any say on the matter. If you were paying for it you might have some reasonable expectation that they leave your content intact, but you're not. It's like complaining about high taxes and then turning around and complaining that the government isn't sending everyone's children to college for free. You can't have it both ways. I think this is an absolutely acceptable (and, incidentally, completely innocuous) monetization strategy. It's not like they're rewriting your blog posts to give the false impression you're a Nazi porn star child molester. (I would be against that, for the record.)
- Tichy 16y ago
  So whenever I use a free service, they are basically entitled to do whatever they want? What kind of logic is that? If they can't handle it, people shouldn't offer a free service. But don't run a service for "free" and then try to make money with shady business practices. In other words, you are not entitled to running a service for free.
  - Silhouette 16y ago
    > So whenever I use a free service, they are basically entitled to do whatever they want? Well, legally speaking, they probably are, yes. You get what you pay for, and the current entitlement culture because a lot of "free" on-line services don't come with financial strings does not negate this basic fact of life. Now, whether they should disclose that they are doing this so that those using their service can decide whether or not they wish to continue doing so is an entirely different question.
    - Tichy 16y ago
      Why would there be different rules for businesses, depending on whether their offering is free or not? Suppose posterous would charge 5$/month for their blog hosting, and still would add the affiliate links, what would it change in your opinion? I don't think it is illegal to add those links. I for one will stay away from them, though. Also, Facebook is free. Why did they bother to introduce new terms of service at all? According to you, they could just do whatever they want?

by floodfx 16y ago

milkshakes 16y ago

would you rather have banner ads? they have to make their money somewhere. as long as they're not rewriting existing affiliate links, this is about as unobtrusive as it gets [edit: rewriting the links directly, instead of using a third party that necessarily obfuscates the url would be less obtrusive, but the principle is still the same]

csomar 16y ago
>> they have to make their money somewhere I'm not against Posterous making money online to provide me a free service. However, they should be transparent and clear about it. When I sign up, I want to be notified about this. I'm going to create a blog, publish posts, make readership and stay a good time there; so I want to know whatever thing happens in my blog and not only be surprised about it when it happens. Point 2 is that they didn't have a clear strategy how to monetize themselves (which is crucial since nothing runs for free) from the beginning. Come on, but this is like saying "Get your free domain here" and then telling you that the domain is free, but only if you pay for the hosting :(
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Yep. And for all the handwaving about transparency and 'going forward' there is no real offer of a solution for what they've done to date, in other words, they did it and intend to continue to do it. If they're serious about this they'll switch the feature off for all accounts up to the moment of modifying their terms of service, and make sure that new signups are properly informed. This so called apology seems to mix up the meanings of the words 'unobtrusive' and 'sneaky'.
jacquesm 16y ago
Of course posterous has to make money somewhere. But they should clearly spell out in the terms of service of the free product how they intend to do that. And they should allow people to opt out of this, either by going for a premium product or by switching it off on an account-by-account basis. And given the nasty way in which this was introduced the default for all old accounts should be OFF, new accounts know presumably what they're getting in to after the terms of service are modified to reflect reality. Nobody wants to withhold income from posterous, it's just that this is about as bad as it gets when dealing with the trust of your users. I'm personally pretty pissed off about it, I did a speech here in NL not that long ago comparing Ning and Posterous and presented posterous as a very good alternative without any of the nasty tricks that Ning has used over the years to lock in their users. I wished I could eat my words now.

xelipe 16y ago

I agree. There is a big difference between getting a cut from generated search result (which is expected to change over time) and a users' blog post (which is often static after written). And don't get with the problem with will cause to the linked sites in term of Google juice.

rantfoil 16y ago
There's no Google impact here -- Viglink is javascript behavior. Link juice is utterly unchanged.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  The google bot is capable of running some javascript, whether link juice is unchanged or not does not really apply here because they're simply adding affiliate codes, the destination page is unchanged.

codyrobbins 16y ago

You're using their service completely free, so I don't think you are really entitled to any say on the matter. If you were paying for it you might have some reasonable expectation that they leave your content intact, but you're not. It's like complaining about high taxes and then turning around and complaining that the government isn't sending everyone's children to college for free. You can't have it both ways. I think this is an absolutely acceptable (and, incidentally, completely innocuous) monetization strategy. It's not like they're rewriting your blog posts to give the false impression you're a Nazi porn star child molester. (I would be against that, for the record.)

Tichy 16y ago
So whenever I use a free service, they are basically entitled to do whatever they want? What kind of logic is that? If they can't handle it, people shouldn't offer a free service. But don't run a service for "free" and then try to make money with shady business practices. In other words, you are not entitled to running a service for free.
- Silhouette 16y ago
  > So whenever I use a free service, they are basically entitled to do whatever they want? Well, legally speaking, they probably are, yes. You get what you pay for, and the current entitlement culture because a lot of "free" on-line services don't come with financial strings does not negate this basic fact of life. Now, whether they should disclose that they are doing this so that those using their service can decide whether or not they wish to continue doing so is an entirely different question.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    Why would there be different rules for businesses, depending on whether their offering is free or not? Suppose posterous would charge 5$/month for their blog hosting, and still would add the affiliate links, what would it change in your opinion? I don't think it is illegal to add those links. I for one will stay away from them, though. Also, Facebook is free. Why did they bother to introduce new terms of service at all? According to you, they could just do whatever they want?