Unfair Competition and Abuse of Power

Written by Sharon Housley


Last summer, rumors were abound that an employee of Tucows was using Tucows statistical information in order to determine which products producedrepparttar highest return on investment, withrepparttar 104692 intent to clone them and create competitive products. While not illegal, it is definitely questionable from an ethical standpoint. No real proof existed, so what can be said. It was nothing more than a rumor.

An article cannot be written based on rumors. What facts do we know? According torepparttar 104693 State of Michigan corporate records Alto Software, Inc. is owned by a Tucows employee. Alto Software's two products Alto Block All and Alto Memory Booster were posted on Tucows. Both products have high download counts and held top download positions from November 2003 to February 2004. In order for Alto Software to maintain top positions throughoutrepparttar 104694 holiday season they would had to have spent thousands of dollars in advertising dollars.

Abuse of Power Abuse of power sounds pretty absolute, unfortunately that line isn't as clear as one would think. It appears thatrepparttar 104695 ad spots held by Alto Software were provided free of charge. Free advertising, while possibly an employment perk, and not of itself bad, resulted inrepparttar 104696 cost per click to increase significantly for other developers in those categories. In order for Alto Software to maintain their top position,repparttar 104697 cost per click was raised from $ .04 per click to more than $ .40 per click from November to January. Alto Software increasedrepparttar 104698 cost per click, in order to maintainrepparttar 104699 top position, but were never required to pay forrepparttar 104700 clicks. This forced other developers wishing to remain in a top listing to pay significantly more for each click. The handful of developers bidding on keywords and categories were forced to spend significantly more money each month, in order to maintain their position and compete against Alto Software's products.

A software promotion company (softwarepromoting.com) that appears to be a subdivision of Alto Software, guaranteed listings on Tucows.com. Softwarepromoting.com's website even went so far to say, that software promoted using their services was exempt fromrepparttar 104701 Tucows removal process. Competing submission services were unable to provide these guarantees. The legitimacy of Alto's promotion service also requires close scrutiny.

Alto Software clearly had an unfair advantage over their competitors. It would appear that a Tucows employee personally profited from their position at Tucows. There is a fine line between breaking ethical rules and using your unique position to make a profit. It appears that line was clearly crossed.

Six Ways to Save Your Site and the Internet

Written by Jason OConnor


Title: Six Ways to Save Your Site andrepparttar Internet

Author: Jason OConnor URL: http://www.oakwebworks.com Copyright: 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------- TERMS OF REPRINT

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long asrepparttar 104691 bylines are included and you follow these rules:

* Email distribution of this article MUST be opt-in email only.

* You must forward a copy ofrepparttar 104692 ezine or newsletter that containsrepparttar 104693 article inside torepparttar 104694 author at: mailto:jason@oakwebworks.com

* If you post this article on a website, you must set any URL's inrepparttar 104695 body ofrepparttar 104696 article and most especially inrepparttar 104697 Author's Resource Box as hyperlinks. Please send usrepparttar 104698 URL. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Six Ways to Save Your Site andrepparttar 104699 Internet

By Jason OConnor © 2004 http://www.oakwebworks.com

You are not only a Web Consultant, Internet Entrepreneur, or Web Business Owner; you’re also an Internet user. Since you are reading this article, you have already achieved a certain level of Web sophistication.

It is vitally important that when you make decisions regarding a website, an Internet program, an e-marketing campaign or a Web service, you take advantage ofrepparttar 104700 fact that you are a Web user also.

What this means is that practicingrepparttar 104701 Golden Rule will guide you more than any article, book, tape, class or seminar out there. Let’s slightly alter this Rule to fitrepparttar 104702 21st Century Web world:

“Always create an experience onrepparttar 104703 Web for others exactly how you would likerepparttar 104704 experience to be for yourself in a similar situation.”

Here arerepparttar 104705 top four biggest concerns, negative aspects, and downfalls ofrepparttar 104706 Internet today:

1.Spam 2.Viruses 3.Privacy 4.Identity theft

Here arerepparttar 104707 top 6 ways you can alleviate these concerns for your customers or website visitors:

1) Don’t practice Spamming

Sounds simple, but spamming is painfully ubiquitous today. However, there are people out there who conduct email marketing with integrity. They have excellent success while avoiding everything that even hints of spam. They get much better returns than spammers. Why ever consider spamming again?

2)Offer an opt-out option – and make it prominent

Again, this is simple, and we’ve heard it a million times, but it can’t be repeated enough. Generally speaking, makerepparttar 104708 opt-out checkbox next torepparttar 104709 email form field.

3) Have a Privacy statement/page – and make it obvious and easily accessible

In England, this is a law, and it’s policed. I wish it was this way everywhere. Place you’re Privacy link somewhere that a person filling out info on your site can easily see it. Makerepparttar 104710 statement comprehensive. And stick to what you state inrepparttar 104711 statement, torepparttar 104712 letter, or you are inviting legal action.

4) Take a highlight out ofrepparttar 104713 Privacy statement and place it right onrepparttar 104714 web form

For example, directly above your web form, have a statement similar to this: “[Your Company Name] does not share, sell or give away email addresses or personal information to any other organization or company. You can be assured that your email address will never leave [Your Company Name] and you will never receive spam as a result of giving us your email address.” Make this in regular sized font, maybe even bold. The point is to makerepparttar 104715 user feel comfortable.

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