UPDATE 9:08 A.M. EST (FEB. 19 U.S.A.) After having gone missing yesterday, entries below “Noobing Rotator’s Top Rated Sites” on Noobing’s main page have returned. But previous entries for Rachel Ray, the Red Cross, Omaha Steaks and OrganicConsumers no longer are there. Here, below, our earlier post . . .
Controversial surf site Noobing has removed references to celebrity chef Rachel Ray, the International Red Cross and other entities from its website. Links to Ray’s site and the Red Cross had appeared on the main page at the Noobing site, under a headline titled “Noobing Rotator’s Top Rated Sites.”
Noobing, which pitched itself heavily to hearing-impaired clients, has been under fire for days because it slashed advertiser payouts. Members said that, in its early days last fall and into the winter, the company paid ad-viewing “incentives” of between 1 percent and 3 percent to customers.
The Surf recently has paid “incentives” of significantly less than 1 percent, causing members to ask publicly for refunds and accuse the firm of “bait and switch.” Noobing countered by saying refunds would not be granted because “incentives” weren’t guaranteed.
Noobing said its decision to slash “incentives” was based on an unclear ruling in the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case. Noobing launched after ASD’s assets were seized by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008, amid allegations of wire-fraud, money-laundering, selling unregistered securities and operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme.
Customers now are questioning why Noobing even chose to launch and wondering out loud if Noobing had done all of its regulatory homework up front. Noobing said members should be angry at the government, not the company.
“If there is a bad guy in this whole story, it’s the government!†the employee exclaimed. “Let’s get mad at them! How can sharing our revenue to help control costs for legitimate advertisers be a bad thing? How can keeping $90+ million dollars to protect the people who worked with ASD be a fair result? It’s madness!!! Our government is the bad guy here, not Noobing.
“Let’s get mad at the source of this challenge!†the employee railed. “Call your congressman, send letters, speak publicly!!â€
See related post. Also, see this related post.
Why Noobing removed the references to Rachel Ray, the Red Cross and others is unclear. The information went missing without explanation.
The development may prompt Noobing members to question whether the company had signed agreements with Ray and the Red Cross to advertise on Noobing, or whether the sites were simply inserted in the Noobing rotator to create the impression that a relationship existed.
Promoters of ASD placed the main page of Facebook.com in the rotator, suggesting that Facebook itself was an ASD advertiser. Pages from other social-networking sites also were placed in the rotator. An undercover agent working for a Secret Service/IRS task force placed a MySpace page in the rotator and qualified for ASD viewer “rebates” even though the MySpace page offered nothing for sale.
