Saying 'No' To Those Who'd Exploit Your Good Name
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Willie Crawford, Will Bontrager and I have been very busy with the launch of HotlinkALARM. Our product, which sends users an email when it detects hotlinking to files and gives them a heads-up that a thief might be at work, is a response to the global problem of digital piracy.
Our core belief is that most people online have honest intentions. But it's definitely not all people. There are individual thieves who delight in taking things without paying for them, even using branded images to trick their website visitors into believing their operations are above-board.
HotlinkALARM takes that trick out of the thief's playbook. It is a strong deterrent not only against product theft, but also against identity theft. As a practical matter, a practiced thief wants his or her website visitors to believe they're dealing with an honest broker.
And they pull off the deception by using branded images they steal from websites. If you're like most people, you pour your heart and soul into your business. And you tweak and refine so your presentation is "just right." It's what distinguishes you from competitors and helps you build long-lasting relationships with your customers.
They know they can count on you to over-deliver.
But what they may not know is that they're not really dealing with you: That's the precise confusing circumstance hotlinkers create.
They create the appearance of honesty by adopting the identities and branding tools used by honest merchants. Hotlinking and identity theft are part of their poison plan to make money through deception.
It was a trick used against us: A person illegally posted "20 Ways To Make $100 Per Day Online" on eBay only a few days after its release on October 8. He offered a two-thirds discount on "20 Ways" in his illegal eBay auction -- and he pulled images and testimonials from our sales site, meaning he used our bandwidth so he could extract a double penalty from us.
Not only did he take our product, he sent us a bill to make it easier for him to deliver the product to his customers. Such things happen all the time -- and lots of times it's just the tip of the iceberg.
That's why we designed HotlinkALARM not only to detect hotlinking to images, but also to files such as PDFS (eBooks), video files, audio files and other types of files.
HotlinkALARM is an early-warning system that also has the ability to inform visitors to a hotlinker's website that he or she is displaying unauthorized files. It's a remarkable product.
Think about the position the thief put us in: First, there was the issue of the theft itself. And then, of course, he was harvesting illegal profits from our hard work. His customers actually left him positive feedback because they didn't know they were dealing with a thief.
A thief was serving as a spokesman for our product, basking in the glow of the positive feedback and diluting our hard work and our carefully conceived brand identity every step of the way.
But what if a customer asked for a refund? If they couldn't get it from him, they very likely would have turned to us. After all, it was our book, our brand -- and the customer likely would believe we had sanctioned this auction.
We could have found ourselves in the position of sifting through Support Tickets for a thief. And what if he'd changed our product or edited it in some way? In other words, what if he'd decided to turn our product into something that it wasn't while trading off our good names?
A person willing to steal our product and our brand identity certainly is capable of other misdeeds.
We had an extremely low refund rate with "20 Ways"; it's a quality product that became one of the bestselling ebooks of 2007. It's still flying off the shelves.
But that's not really the point: The point is that someone stole our property, adopted our brand identity as his own -- and put us in the position of having to clean up his mess.
That's one of the biggest reasons we created Hotlink Alarm: We had the need to take a tool of deception away from hotlinkers and digital thieves. Our product gives webmasters, online merchants from virtually all market segments, designers, artists, authors, Internet Marketers, brand-based businesses better control over their intellectual property.
HotlinkALARM and "Image No Copy," which is included with Hotlink ALARM, make it tough on image hotlinkers, digital pirates and thieves.
And speaking of thieves . . .
Have you heard that a company has sprouted up that sells phishing kits?
That's right! I'm not making this up. Customers, for a fee, now can buy a turnkey phishing site. Included in the kit are email templates and hacking tools -- a complete hacker's kit all under one roof.
Yes, thieves are recruiting an international army of like-minded thieves. And they're even trying to game the thieves they recruit by inserting calback features into the code so private data from the thieves and the thieves' customers all can be exploited.
Thieves stealing from thieves and the customers of thieves: There truly is no honor among this constantly expanding lot.
The headline on the post you're reading is "Saying 'No' To Those Who'd Exploit Your Good Name."
HotlinkALARM helps you do just that.
The world is a big place indeed. Some people have licensed themselves to exploit honest merchants, to extract illegal online profits and appropriate personal property and carefully crafted brand identities.
I mentioned the phishing kit above because it illustrates the point that thieves will go to great lengths to enrich themselves while harming other people and companies.
Lots and lots of people likely will buy the turnkey phishing sites, a criminal business in a box. They'll be looking for even more wicked ways to exploit online merchants and their customers.
Hotlink ALARM helps you say no to the exploitation of your images, products -- and your good name.
Have a piracy-free day, Friend.
http://hotlinkalarm.com
Patrick Pretty
The "Most Beautiful Little Boy In The World" -- 1964
Labels: 20 Ways To Make $100 Per Day Online, brand dilution, hacker's kit, illegal eBay auction, illegal online profits, phishing kits, turnkey phishing site
posted by Patrick Pretty @ 9:39 AM,
