(Wonder if youwannapoker.com will even read this before they gank it.)
I had pretty much forgotten about the abundance of poker content thieves out there — was just gonna keep doing my thing and not let them bring me down. But then I read Gary Carson\’s blog … and he reminded me that really, while maybe we can\’t stop this practice outright, that doesn\’t mean we should stand idly by as our \”good friends\” at Full Tilt continue to profit off the \”work\” of known internet thieves.
I\’m being kinda serious: I think it might be time for a good-ole-fashioned lawsuit! Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Clonie Gowen, Ray Bitar, Michael Craig … so many others — just dropping a few names who might take note and have a concerned interest in this matter — are you listening?
(Ultimate Bet, we\’re looking at you, too.)
You have clearly been made aware of the problems with sites like youwannapoker. (More here.) And while you may not have it in your power to do anything about an \”anonymous\” site itself, you do have plenty of authority over its affiliate-code business. Yet the only solution you have offered is to \”warn them\”? Why aren\’t you doing more to separate yourselves from this ilk of internet bad guy? Because you are making money off them, we can only presume. I for one might want to put you through the American discovery process to find out.
Many of the offending blog pirates have been shut down, have pulled out, or have changed their business model. But not youwannapoker. The site\’s \”Poker Girl\” continues to steal from Pokerati, PokerNews, and maybe others — to the point of claiming she actually is doing the writing. From there, Full Tilt gets new players, keeping 75 percent of their lifetime rakes. Perhaps the readers will tell me if I am being crazy/greedy or have my numbers wrong … but I know it\’s not right for Full Tilt to profit off our creative efforts like that, right?
Yet what Full Tilt is essentially saying to the content thieves with their negligence to address the situation: \”Keep doing what you\’re doing — so long as it keeps the real-money players coming in! In fact, we love whatever it is you do to get us these players so much so that the more you send us … the more we will pay you! We love you Poker Girl! We may be conscientious objectors to the UIGEA, but if there were a way for us to get mass conversions via killing, we\’d encourage homicide and offer a great CPK!\”
OK, so maybe I\’m getting a little overhyped — punitive damages after all — but Full Tilt, the longer you let this sorta thing fester, the more problems you\’ll have. That\’s in no way a threat — because for as many lawyers as I know, I can\’t imagine too many getting excited about fighting an untested internet case across international borders (especially one where you have to explain the concept of rakeback to a jury) — it\’s just an observational reality. Because we understand how you might want to honor your agreements with all your affiliates lest you look dishonorable; but even if you cut off the online-poker bad guys, you\’ll continue to make rake on players who might not have found their way to Full Tilt poker were it not for shady practices that you\’ve encouraged. At best for you, these gains are like OJ\’s NFL pension.
Below is Pokerati\’s correspondence a couple months ago with Full Tilt about the matter. My last email, fyi, garnered no reply.
From: Dan Michalski
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:05 AM
To: \’The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker\’
Subject: RE: bad affiliateWhich content are you referring to? Just my content … or all ill-gotten RSS bastardizations? Taking down just mine might actually do me more harm than good, so please don’t do me any favors. I was hoping you would be willing to help set a standard by letting your affiliates know that you can not support websites that use unethical and possibly illegal means to send traffic your way.
Yes, you benefit because people do searches, say for “WSOP news†… and google provides them with the teaser text of a post written by me and others … but on youwannapoker. So when these people click … they land on a site that wasn’t really what they were looking for or thought they were clicking, which probably increases the likelihood that they will leave the site via an affiliate ad. Good for you, I guess, because Full Tilt is the primary and most prominent advertisement on the site. But this affiliate’s entire business model is based on stealing. I know Rafe, Ray, Chris, Howard, and many others at Full Tilt … and I didn’t think your operation would support doing business this way.
From: The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:35 AM
To: \’Dan Michalski\’
Subject: RE: bad affiliateHi,
We shall write to the affiliate of this website and warn them to remove the content from their site.Best Regards
Kevin
The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt PokerFull Tilt Poker
Chat with the Pros. Play with the Pros. Learn from the Pros.From: Dan Michalski
Sent: 28 March 2007 10:22
To: \’The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker\’
Subject: RE: bad affiliateYes. Visit the site and the evidence is right there. The entire site is based on stealing content. They provide linkbacks (barely) to the original post … so you can see that “poker girl†did not write the posts.
From: The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 12:17 PM
To: \’Dan Michalski\’
Subject: RE: bad affiliateHi,
Please can you provide some evidence of this so that we can contact the owner of youwannapoker with particular examples.Best Regards
Kevin
The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt PokerFull Tilt Poker
Chat with the Pros. Play with the Pros. Learn from the Pros.From: Dan Michalski
Sent: 26 March 2007 05:50
To: Support AT FTP
Cc: Affiliates AT FTP
Subject: bad affiliateHi there, my name is Dan and I run Pokerati.com. There is a site – [youwannapoker.com] – that is improperly stealing content from my site and others (such as PokerNews.com) for SEO purposes … which they then use to make money via Full Tilt. Can you help me put a stop to this?
Best,
Dan Michalski