WEBMASTERS, YOU'RE BEING STOLEN FROM!
by Dennis Gaskill

You're being stolen from...

...and you probably don't even know it.

Original thinking about Windows XP was to incorporate the use of Smart Tags. What Smart Tags were to do is underline certain words in the text of a web site, any and all web sites, with links to Microsoft and Microsoft's partners/advertisers.

For instance, if you had an article on your site about replacing storm windows, the word "windows" would probably link to Microsoft because that's the name of their operating system. This was equated by many with site-jacking. Thousands were outraged, and the voices of protest made Microsoft back off from the idea, for now anyway.

At least with Smart Tags, it supposed to be limited to things like company names and product names.

Now there is a program called TOPText that is worse. Advertisers can buy keywords, and anyone with TOPtext installed would see whatever words the advertiser paid for linked to the advertiser's site from your site. Again, as with Smart Tags, without the webmasters consent for the links to be there.

Why would anyone want to install software that enables advertisers to make ads out of ordinary words? Most wouldn't. That's why EZula, the company that developed TOPtext, made a deal to have it bundled with KaZaA, a popular Napster replacement. It's snuck onto your operating system when you install KaZaA, just like a virus! It's the only way they can get it onto people's computers.

Few people realize it's being installed, they just all of a sudden start seeing yellow underlines under every word an advertiser wants to buy wherever they go on the web. This is totally underhanded, you should be outraged as a web site owner and as a computer user/surfer. And we won't even talk about how all those yellow underlines make your page look!

This isn't an insignificant number were talking about. KaZaA had almost 5 million downloads in July alone. There are a significant number of people coming to your site that could be spirited away by clicking a link that you didn't place there. That link could lead directly to a competitor if you have a business site.

What's more, most surfers aren't going to realize you didn't place those links there, and may take the fact that the link is there as your endorsement for that advertiser! Do you really want people thinking you're endorsing these scumbags? Since they've demonstrated a lack of ethics and fairplay by defacing your web site for the sake of their own greed, they may treat their customers with the same lack of ethics and fairplay. Then the surfer that found them through your site will never trust YOU again!

McAfee Antivirus was, and perhaps still is, one of the advertisers. The word "antivirus" was linked on the Symantec antivirus site to the McAfee site, and they are arch rivals. There are other instances of links created on one site directly to a competitor's site.

This will further the move toward pay for content web sites. If webmasters can't make money selling advertising, and software like TOPtext can create links on your site and steal traffic without your consent, there will be little choice but to change to the pay for content model or shut down. Don't be surprised if I'm forced into a pay for content model. I'm seriously thinking about it.

This whole concept should be should be, and probably is, illegal. They are selling the words off your web page with no compensation to you. That is your intellectual property they are selling and you're not being compensated for it. Copyright infringement? Vandalism?

I rarely advocate lawsuits, I think most are greed based and frivolous, but I hope someone sues EZula and KaZaa and they lose everything. I hope their advertisers face lawsuits for traffic hijacking. I hope a bird poops on their heads...every day.

I don't have the money to sue them, but if there are any attorneys out there reading this and needing a test case to make a name for themselves, write to me. I'm outraged by the whole concept.

In case you want to join me in a boycott of the advertisers and the theft enablers, the ones I know of are:

Wells Fargo Bank BMG Entertainment (Music Service) McAfee KaZaA EZula

I also wrote to EZula and suggested they find ways to compensate the web site owners they're stealing from, because as it is, they're selling someone else's copyrighted words.

I've also learned you're supposed to be able to ask them to block your web sites from displaying their links. Some responses they give indicate they don't do that, but when threatened with legal action others have indicated they, in fact, do block some web sites. I'd suggest everyone do that...daily...until they confirm your sites have been blocked. Rewrite this in your own words, but here's the letter I'm now sending them daily:

I've learned that you are violating my intellectual property rights by way of a program called TopText. This interferes with my relationship with my site's sponsors who have paid to sponsor the content of my web sites. They have a legal right to expect that their advertisements will appear on my sites without corruption by an unauthorized third party. You have no rights to place links on my site. If you would like to contract for links within my content that is something that can be negotiated.

You may not corrupt my content without my permission. If the situation continues I will seek legal remedies.

My sites are as follows:
http://www.boogiejack.com
http://www.backgroundmagic.com
etc.

Please notify me when you have disabled your software from making unauthorized changes to my property.

Dennis Gaskill

Write to them at:

Email Ezula

For further reading on this story:

Slashdot

San Francisco Chronicle

ZDNet

ZeroPaid

======================================================================================
Dennis Gaskill is the creator and owner of Boogie Jack's Web Depot - a popular webmasters resource site ranking in the top 1% of the most linked to sites on the Internet. He is also author of the new book Web Site Design Made Easy and publishes Almost a Newsletter, named the Best Ezine of 2000.

======================================================================================