Bidding on Fear: The SuperFish Vulnerability and Paid Search

As you probably know by now, here at BrandVerity, we don’t have a lot of patience for malware and adware, particularly when advertisers bundle it with free versions of popular software. We were thus quite pleased when Google recently announced some changes to how they treat download sites in Paid Search.

But if we’re already lacking in patience for the download sites who target average web users, we have even less for sites that attempt to take advantage of already vulnerable users.

Jennie Scholick
Apr 21, 2015

Maintaining Brand Integrity: Highlights from My Presentation at AM Days

Since we’re still fresh off of a wonderful few days in San Francisco at AM Days, I wanted to take the opportunity to share the slides and recap the presentation I delivered at the event. I thought this could be a useful reference—whether you were able to attend the talk or not. For those of you that couldn’t be there, I’ve provided a synopsis of my points below (along with my slides). You can also feel free to connect with me over LinkedIn or send BrandVerity a note!

sam.engel
Apr 16, 2015

Affiliate Ethics: Beware of this New Adware Platform

A lot of the time, detecting potential bad actors in the affiliate world can be hard: these guys are smart, and it’s in their best interest to hide (and hide well) from brands, affiliate managers, and honest affiliates.

But sometimes they come right to you.

We’ve been hearing recently that someone had been aggressively marketing an adware platform to numerous people in the affiliate industry--including, ironically, a lot of folks who work on the front lines of affiliate compliance and who have little patience for adware.

Jennie Scholick
Apr 14, 2015

Trends I Noticed at AM Days in San Francisco

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend my first ever Affiliate Management Days conference in San Francisco. I was thrilled to be there—everything from the location (I don’t get to visit the bay area enough!) to the expert-level content created a positive atmosphere for networking and learning. Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience, I wanted to share some of the key themes and moments that I remember. I hope this recap will prove useful for you—whether you were at the conference or not!

sam.engel
Apr 9, 2015

FTC Updates from March 2015

March was a big month in FTC developments! We give our quick take on some of those most relevant to our readers.

Jennie Scholick
Apr 7, 2015

Are Your Pay-Per-Call Affiliates Opening You Up to Regulatory Risk? We Talk to the Experts at Fraud Posse

A few months ago, as part of our Lead Gen Series, we published a post about pay-per-call sites and the questions they can raise about where exactly those calls are going. In that post, we didn’t delve into the possible FTC and FCC violations that these kinds of ads can give rise to, so we’re going to do that today as part of our FTC Compliance Series!

Jennie Scholick
Mar 31, 2015

Google To Update Policy Regarding Software Download Ads

One of the major takeaways from both editions of BrandVerity’s Branded Keywords Report has been that Download & Toolbar sites, which bundle free versions of software with other products, such as toolbars, malware, or adware, are a major problem for software technology companies. In fact, in our study covering Q4 2014, nine of the top 10 advertisers on branded technology terms were Download sites.

Jennie Scholick
Mar 24, 2015

FTC’s “Operation Full Disclosure” and ROSCA Enforcement Efforts Gaining Momentum

We’re thrilled to be featuring the first guest post in our FTC Compliance series, written by attorney Richard B. Newman. Richard has been a great source for us at BrandVerity as we’ve developed our knowledge regarding regulatory issues, as well as a noted leader in the field, working on the Performance Marketing Association’s Blogging and New Media Disclosures Guide and contributing frequently to publications including mThink, OfferVault and LeadsCon.

Jennie Scholick
Mar 17, 2015

In Anticipation of the Pi-Day of a Lifetime, We Blind Tasted 5 Apple Pies

Our office observed Pi-Day today. Christopher led the team in a blind tasting of five store-bought frozen apple pies.

The Candidates:

  • A: Mrs. Smith's Original Flaky Crust Dutch Apple Pie ($5.99): The box art highlights 'real' butter and they are quite proud of their flaky crust.
  • B: Safeway Select Dutch Apple Pie ($4.89): The cheapest pie on the list. The box doesn't describe much else about the pie, other than that it is 'select'. The only pie without a web page to link to.
  • C: Sara Lee Oven Fresh Dutch Apple Pie ($5.00 reg. $8.99): Kind of funny that Sara Lee uses the phrase 'Oven Fresh' to describe a pie that you buy frozen.
  • D: Grand Central Bakery U-Bake Apple Pie ($16.95): Grand Central Bakery is a popular bakery a few blocks from our office in Pioneer Square. A few of us remember when President Obama had lunch there.
  • E: Marie Callender's Lattice Apple Pie ($6.49 reg $8.99): This pie even has you sprinkle sugar on midway through the baking process.
David Naffziger
Mar 13, 2015

FTC and FCC Sources, Resources, and Information

FTC Compliance is not a new topic for the BrandVerity blog--in fact, our first post after announcing our launch touched on FTC issues! And we’ve added a fair bit more content since 2009. In 2013, Sam Engel explored .Com Disclosures with the help of law professor Eric Goldman and looked at how well affiliates on Twitter were complying with those standards. We also recently took a look at e-cigarette companies and the potential for the FTC to enact further regulation in that space.

Jennie Scholick
Mar 10, 2015
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