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Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

24 points by gatsby 16y ago

praptak 16y ago
Porn sites shouldn't have any qualms about advertising this guy.
- jarin 16y ago
  Speaking from experience, porn sites send the worst traffic imaginable (just a bunch of horny guys who don't convert). Then again, every site on his network seems to target a fetish of some kind. I don't think we'll run into any problems advertising SetForMarriage.com (since it serves basically the exact opposite market as Ashley Madison), but it is a little concerning that Google/Bing/Facebook might start to crack down on the dating industry as a whole. Granted, a lot of sites deserve it due to their ultra-shady business tactics, but we're trying to at least try to build a legit dating site that actually cares about its customers. For example, we try to answer all support emails within an hour, we try our best to block and delete fake profiles (most dating sites don't), we let non-premium users reply to messages (we got inspired by the deleted OK Cupid post about it), and users can cancel their own subscriptions via a big red button.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Interesting. How successful are you in blocking fake profiles? How do you even measure success?
    - jarin 16y ago
      It's difficult to measure, but we kind of eyeball it by looking at the decrease in fake profiles with each thing we add. CloudFlare was hands down the most effective thing we've done so far (by blocking users by country and/or by Project Honeypot info). It virtually eliminated all of the automated bot accounts and most of the human spammers. A couple of days ago I changed the signup process to use the Facebook Registration tool (under the assumption that Facebook is way better at weeding out fake profiles than we are), and that seems to be working pretty well so far. It's too soon to tell how it will affect our signup rates, but we'd rather err on the side of quality profiles. I'm also looking at running profiles through Mollom and some image-checking service I can't remember the name of if we still have fake profiles slipping through the cracks after all that, but we'll continue to go through the profiles every day and try to find the bad guys. We also gave a nice lady a lifetime premium account for reporting a ton of suspicious profiles when we were first starting out. :)
      - underwater 16y ago
        The image checking service is probably http://www.tineye.com/ http://www.tineye.com/
        jarin 16y ago
        It's something like Oculus, or something like that. I've tried to use the Tineye browser plugin to check profile images, but it doesn't even pick up Raven Riley images (for some reason, like 5-10% of spam profiles have used Raven Riley as their image).
notahacker 16y ago
This article is bullshit. Top result for a search for Google is an Adword for his site, followed by a natural search result for his site, followed predictably by Wikipedia and some affiliate sites dedicated to promoting his site.
- jarin 16y ago
  The AdWords result seems to be an affiliate link (note the redirects before you hit the site). It's likely that Google just restricted his AdWords account and not the "ashley madison" keywords themselves.
  - notahacker 16y ago
    This may be true, but I think it's a bit rich to accuse Google and Bing of "censorship" when they undoubtedly send him huge volumes of traffic in natural search results whilst (perhaps) opting not to take his money. That's also assuming they're not taking his money based purely on his website's reputation, which I find doubtful given his obvious flair for generating [relatively] cheap PR by getting SuperBowl ads banned.
- Unseelie 16y ago
  The complaint is that his buzzwords are not getting published. Google Adultery, the addwords add is for a competitor...just the issue he's complaining of.
jamn 16y ago
Another question is to what extent AshleyMadison needs to rely on traditional advertisement versus, say, word of mouth. I don't particularly remember ever seeing an ad for Facebook, Google until recently, or OKCupid. Yet it seemed to matter little as those sites grew.
- jtbigwoo 16y ago
  The difference, of course, is that people these days are quick to say how much they use Facebook or OKCupid, but very few people are willing to talk with their friends about their extramarital affairs.
gChinkin 16y ago
It is interesting to see that his wife is defending him... Is she being supportive or is it just about the money?
paolomaffei 16y ago
We thought, 'Let's just do one of these ads that we know will get rejected,'" he says. They shot the whole commercial in 25 minutes. When CBS refused it, Biderman's company posted it all over YouTube and the Web, tagging it as the "banned Super Bowl commercial." -- Kudos to you, Mr Biderman
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
zemanel 16y ago
and i don't even have a wife yet
blues 16y ago
Ha! Hell no! Never as long as I'm here!
mikey_p 16y ago
After reading the section on Facebook blocking him, I though "Well duh, he's a direct competitor of Facebook!!" In all seriousness I don't know how many affairs originate through each site, but with Facebook's volume, even a low percentage could eclipse Ashley Madison. To be honest, I can't imagine MySpace, or any other social network being allowed to advertise on Facebook either.
contactdick 16y ago
It's an interesting method he's developed to generate buzz for his company. Piggy backing big media draw-cards such as Facebook, Superbowl and Google claiming they are banning adds to try and prevent him operating generates a lot more free media attention than the adds themselves would have. I had no idea adultery sites even existed until now. I'm not married but would have thought standard operating procedure would be to go to a singles website and just not tick married?

24 points by gatsby 16y ago

praptak 16y ago

Porn sites shouldn't have any qualms about advertising this guy.

jarin 16y ago
Speaking from experience, porn sites send the worst traffic imaginable (just a bunch of horny guys who don't convert). Then again, every site on his network seems to target a fetish of some kind. I don't think we'll run into any problems advertising SetForMarriage.com (since it serves basically the exact opposite market as Ashley Madison), but it is a little concerning that Google/Bing/Facebook might start to crack down on the dating industry as a whole. Granted, a lot of sites deserve it due to their ultra-shady business tactics, but we're trying to at least try to build a legit dating site that actually cares about its customers. For example, we try to answer all support emails within an hour, we try our best to block and delete fake profiles (most dating sites don't), we let non-premium users reply to messages (we got inspired by the deleted OK Cupid post about it), and users can cancel their own subscriptions via a big red button.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Interesting. How successful are you in blocking fake profiles? How do you even measure success?
  - jarin 16y ago
    It's difficult to measure, but we kind of eyeball it by looking at the decrease in fake profiles with each thing we add. CloudFlare was hands down the most effective thing we've done so far (by blocking users by country and/or by Project Honeypot info). It virtually eliminated all of the automated bot accounts and most of the human spammers. A couple of days ago I changed the signup process to use the Facebook Registration tool (under the assumption that Facebook is way better at weeding out fake profiles than we are), and that seems to be working pretty well so far. It's too soon to tell how it will affect our signup rates, but we'd rather err on the side of quality profiles. I'm also looking at running profiles through Mollom and some image-checking service I can't remember the name of if we still have fake profiles slipping through the cracks after all that, but we'll continue to go through the profiles every day and try to find the bad guys. We also gave a nice lady a lifetime premium account for reporting a ton of suspicious profiles when we were first starting out. :)
    - underwater 16y ago
      The image checking service is probably http://www.tineye.com/ http://www.tineye.com/
      - jarin 16y ago
        It's something like Oculus, or something like that. I've tried to use the Tineye browser plugin to check profile images, but it doesn't even pick up Raven Riley images (for some reason, like 5-10% of spam profiles have used Raven Riley as their image).

notahacker 16y ago

This article is bullshit. Top result for a search for Google is an Adword for his site, followed by a natural search result for his site, followed predictably by Wikipedia and some affiliate sites dedicated to promoting his site.

jarin 16y ago
The AdWords result seems to be an affiliate link (note the redirects before you hit the site). It's likely that Google just restricted his AdWords account and not the "ashley madison" keywords themselves.
- notahacker 16y ago
  This may be true, but I think it's a bit rich to accuse Google and Bing of "censorship" when they undoubtedly send him huge volumes of traffic in natural search results whilst (perhaps) opting not to take his money. That's also assuming they're not taking his money based purely on his website's reputation, which I find doubtful given his obvious flair for generating [relatively] cheap PR by getting SuperBowl ads banned.
Unseelie 16y ago
The complaint is that his buzzwords are not getting published. Google Adultery, the addwords add is for a competitor...just the issue he's complaining of.

jamn 16y ago

Another question is to what extent AshleyMadison needs to rely on traditional advertisement versus, say, word of mouth. I don't particularly remember ever seeing an ad for Facebook, Google until recently, or OKCupid. Yet it seemed to matter little as those sites grew.

jtbigwoo 16y ago
The difference, of course, is that people these days are quick to say how much they use Facebook or OKCupid, but very few people are willing to talk with their friends about their extramarital affairs.

gChinkin 16y ago

It is interesting to see that his wife is defending him... Is she being supportive or is it just about the money?

paolomaffei 16y ago

We thought, 'Let's just do one of these ads that we know will get rejected,'" he says. They shot the whole commercial in 25 minutes. When CBS refused it, Biderman's company posted it all over YouTube and the Web, tagging it as the "banned Super Bowl commercial." -- Kudos to you, Mr Biderman

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

zemanel 16y ago

and i don't even have a wife yet

blues 16y ago

Ha! Hell no! Never as long as I'm here!

mikey_p 16y ago

After reading the section on Facebook blocking him, I though "Well duh, he's a direct competitor of Facebook!!" In all seriousness I don't know how many affairs originate through each site, but with Facebook's volume, even a low percentage could eclipse Ashley Madison. To be honest, I can't imagine MySpace, or any other social network being allowed to advertise on Facebook either.

contactdick 16y ago

It's an interesting method he's developed to generate buzz for his company. Piggy backing big media draw-cards such as Facebook, Superbowl and Google claiming they are banning adds to try and prevent him operating generates a lot more free media attention than the adds themselves would have. I had no idea adultery sites even existed until now. I'm not married but would have thought standard operating procedure would be to go to a singles website and just not tick married?