Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Link to ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Blog

FTCAdLaw Alert: Settle or Fight the FTC: A ‘Hobbesian’ Choice
The @adage banner study is great for idiots
City Segway Tours Chicago Segway Tour Review

FTCAdLaw Alert: Settle or Fight the FTC: A ‘Hobbesian’ Choice

Posted: 30 Jul 2012 12:17 PM PDT

Imagine you're a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) target presented with a no-compromise settlement demand for all your assets and warned by a top FTC official that unless you take it, "You'll be working for me all your life." You have someone else to pay for your defense (insurance), top-tier legal representation and a chance to win. If you gamble and lose, on the other hand, you could face a multi-million dollar judgment. What would you do? "Cave," or fight?

Charles Gugliuzza, former president of Commerce Planet, which sold a product that helped people make money on eBay, doesn't have to imagine it. Unlike the other individual defendants (disclosure: represented by the author) who settled, Gugliuzza chose to take a stand. How did his gamble turn out? Last month, in FTC v. Commerce Planet Inc., he was found liable for unfair and deceptive negative option marketing and ordered to pay consumer redress of $18.2 million. This follows a $30 million judgment that was entered jointly and severally against individual defendants in another Internet negative option case, FTC v. Grant Connect.

In both cases, each involving a "free trial," the court found that the negative option was not "clearly and conspicuously" disclosed, leaving the deceptive "net impression" that the consumer could get the product for free. In Commerce Planet, for example, the judge compared the highlighted claims for the "free" offer:

GET YOUR KIT NOW FOR FREE" with the word "FREE" in red, at the top of the page WHERE do we ship your FREE KIT?" with "FREE KIT" in red “GET YOUR ONLINE AUCTION STARTER KIT TODAY FOR FREE!" with the "$19.95" price crossed out and next to it, "NOW FREE! (limited time offer)!" with "FREE" again in red with the lack of attention given the negative option. It was disclosed only in hyperlinked terms and conditions and "below the fold," at the "very bottom" of the order page, in "fine print" that was "difficult to read" because it was the smallest text size and blended into the background.

Later versions of the disclosure, while more readable, remained inadequate because they were still in the smallest text and at the bottom of the page, not in "close proximity" to the order button. Even had the disclosure been "above the fold," the court said it still would have been deficient since its "visibility is only slightly improved given its overall placement and presentation."

Prior to Grant Connect and Commerce Planet, the federal "Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act" (known as "Rockefeller"), enacted in December 2010, took care of the so-called "below the fold" problem with negative option placements by requiring that the terms be disclosed "before obtaining the consumer's billing information" – that is, ahead of the credit card fields. Like the judge in Commerce Planet, however, Rockefeller requires that the disclosure be made not only above the fold, but that it be "clear" as well as "conspicuous." To quote the FTC, it must be "unavoidable."

While Grant Connect and Commerce Planet don't necessarily break new ground in legal requirements for online negative option disclosure, they lend a powerful punch to the FTC's current "scorched earth" settlement approach. As humiliating and painful as it may be to have to accede to FTC "all asset" demands that can be punitive, not doing so – and rolling the dice in court, even where you have a chance to win – can be far more ruinous still. Until there is a change in FTC settlement policy, this is the "Hobbesian" choice any FTC target capable of defending himself in court is going to have to make.

Trying to increase your Google rank that is like no other?

The @adage banner study is great for idiots

Posted: 30 Jul 2012 06:08 AM PDT

Last week Adage did a post that reported a banner that was blank got a 70% increase in click through rate then other banners.

This has nubs all over the net in a frenzy on this “game changing” study.

Wow… shocker…

As I showed in my facebook advertising blank ads and even ads written in Korean out performed targeted offered ads.

Ok lets get away from this amazing discovery though…

Lets talk ROI. Not a big surprise its not mentioned at all in the article. Because its pure shit!

I can name 8000 ways to get traffic that wont make you any money.

Dont get me wrong though…

Cool story for those who are not interested in things… like… getting a positive return on your investment.

City Segway Tours Chicago Segway Tour Review

Posted: 29 Jul 2012 06:45 PM PDT

Last weekend, after spending 5 days in NYC at Leadscon, I met my wife in Chicago where we took a segway tour of the city.

I gotta be honest… I was not real excited about it but my wife has always wanted to do it. I am always that kind of “reluctant adventurer” but I always have a good time and am glad I did it.

I gotta say this was a blast.