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Michael is the Chief Marketing Officer for Epic Advertising.
His current responsibilities include overseeing all marketing strategy for the company, all public relations strategy and outreach, Creative Services, trade marketing, internal communications, and providing strategic input on business & corporate development initiatives.
He can be reached at michael.sprouse@epicadvertising.com.

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Forbidden Fruit: Avoiding The Lure Of Fraudulent Offers

Written on
Dec 17, 2007 
Author
Mike Sprouse  |
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Forbidden Fruit: Avoiding The Lure Of Fraudulent Offers

For instance, at AzoogleAds, we realized long ago the importance of marketing integrity to consumers and have taken internal measures over the last several years to make sure our company is a leader in compliance. We suggest these might serve as a model for others to follow going forward. For example:

  • 3 years ago banned pre-checked opt-in boxes were banned 
  • 2 years ago we established higher standards for email marketing, and terminated hundreds of publishers who refused to come into compliance with these standards
  • 2 years ago, we established industry-leading standards for downloadable software (aka adware), standards that are more stringent than the Truste Safe Download program
  • 1 year and 2 months ago, we took unprecedented steps in the mobile marketing space to ban the use of the term “free” in connection with mobile subscription programs.

Most recently, AzoogleAds reached a voluntary cooperation agreement with the Florida Attorney General, which indicates our 100% commitment to mobile value-added services enforcement, and pledges our ongoing support (financial and technical) to the Florida Attorney General’s office in maintaining the best possible standards and practices in online marketing. The agreement was the result of an investigation by that office into the players in the mobile marketing ecosystem, of which AzoogleAds was the largest ad network. Were it not for the long track record of integrity assurance that we’d established – the right policies, the right enforcement mechanisms – we would not have been chosen by the Florida Attorney General for the cooperative agreement. For AzoogleAds, it is a genuine recognition of our achievements in compliance and integrity assurance, one for which we are quite proud, and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the cause.

The bottom line is that companies are either committed to integrity assurance or they are not. It is not an insignificant undertaking to establish true and robust integrity assurance enforcement: the infrastructure, external resources, technology, employee man hours and constant awareness of policy changes are expensive. Moreover, for companies who take the ethical approach, they will sacrifice revenues and profits in the short term. However, the investment and opportunity costs are justifiable and important in long-term sustainable business growth and business partnerships. It’s far easier to strike a great business development deal with a top tier advertiser or website if you practice real compliance. 

For a company embarking on this integrity assurance initiative, I’d advise management to look inside their business practices today and make sure they address privacy and data protection issues and fraud prevention and detection, that they require vigilant policing of adware-based contextual and targeting tactics, and that they enforce strict email marketing standards.  Make certain that your internal quality assurance team rigorously reviews the ad copy you and your partners use. It doesn’t take a legal degree or a law enforcement background to recognize when ad copy is wrong or potentially deceptive. Once your house is in order, communicate your best practices to your consumer base or audience (e.g., post your terms and conditions and your acceptable use policies on your website). Join prominent industry groups so that you can be fully educated on changes in marketing practices, techniques and standards.

While having the appropriate polices is important, the best policies in the world are useless if there is no enforcement mechanism to police them.  Too many players in the online space either have no stated policies or have policies that read well, but which are not enforced. The fact is, a proper Integrity Assurance Program should be what it says – a program of assurance coupled with its integrity policies. 





Reader Comments.

Isn’t Azoogle the same company that paid $1mm for fraudulent practices with respect to a ringtone offer?

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/settlements/09933/free-ringtones-fraud.html

Oh well – maybe they are a reformed company since November.

Posted by Will Redding | 3:08 pm on December 17, 2007.

Before you say you’re in compliance why is the pricing missing on page two, some of the time on this “rogue” affiliates site? And dont you think the pricing on page one is so small and blends with the background color that you really cant see it?
http://ringringmobile.com/step1.php?sub=12|20701838|free%20ringtone&t=3&c=verizon

Also why do you continue to allow them to use Free in their ads?

And lastly if youre so high on doing the right thing why is this site still a publisher? Is the money to good?

Posted by someone | 4:22 pm on December 17, 2007.

I see this board gets moderated pretty heavily.

Someone wants to look good but doesn’t like it when their dirt is brought up

My post about non compliant Azooogle pages was deleted. I am sure this will be deleted too.

Posted by someone | 4:49 pm on December 17, 2007.

IS it me or is this article hypocritical? Doesn’t Azoogle promote many if not ALL the types of offers Mike Sprouse said are “deceptive and fraudulent” ?

I’m not one to point out another’s erroneous statements, but while this article stands to point a finger at those misleading people, I would like to remind azoogle that in this instance there are thousands of fingers point back at them, because thats the number of offers they have run, and continue to run, that are “deceptive and fraudulent.”

Posted by HB | 5:28 pm on December 17, 2007.

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