Change in GAU endorsed programs terms

[pgaming]

Peter, you know full well the GAU is prepared to go after anyone that steals from affiliates!

I hope so because this Virtual Group has been giving people headaches for the past decade. This is one huge assignment but worthy of the GAU's attention.

greek39

[Chalkie]

I hope so because this Virtual Group has been giving people headaches for the past decade. This is one huge assignment but worthy of the GAU's attention.

greek39

Peter, i know you are not a member, however, if you wish the GAU to help in this direction then please ask.

I will help you with pleasure.

Drop me an email with some facts and you will have my 100% support and assistance.

[ironman2000]

I am sorry to see that another conflict of interests has started between two long and respected members of GPWA.

I fully understand that both of you have the interests of affiliates in mind when you give your honest opinion about the Terms & Condition's of the programs out there.

As the GAU is a non profit organization they have set strict guidelines to protect affiliates against unfair conditions.

I also believe this should have not come into the public domain and should have been discussed in private first.

Happy Trading to all in 2010

Keith

The aim at the end of the day is to make our Industry into a better working relationship between affiliates and operators.

[casinobonusguy]

GPWA and others give Andy a forum space and he publishes his term changes there.You didn't copy and paste his words but it looks very much like the format of AGD.
I am sure there are many avenues you can be useful you do not have to squeeze in on an area where we have already the best service.Let's said Andy is working on a terms change with a program then out of blue you send an email and try to work with them.
It may not serve affiliates best interests to have more than one spokesperson on this issue.It may also lead to programs not even bothering to work with ANYONE.
Anyone who reads andy's question to you can see he is upset and NOT OK with the 'Term Alerts 'path GAU is taking.I will leave Andy to speak for himself now but I have reread his question and the reply and I still feel the way I posted.

I have never read GAU mission , it really does not affect this thread .As my reply was in response to the attitude you took with Andy.

[Chalkie]

GPWA and others give Andy a forum space and he publishes his term changes there.You didn't copy and paste his words but it looks very much like the format of AGD.

Look, without going over old ground, when the GAU endorse a program, we endorse them on their terms being OK for us amongst other things, we have to publish any changes to them for our members and the GPWA allow us forum space to do so. Our forum is here to allow us to keep people updated on the GAU.

Andy knows this and has even published this change of terms for our endorsement which clearly states that Affstorm have to notify us before the terms are changed, hence we reported this before Andy would know of it. Originally we wanted the change notification to go to both the AGD and the GAU, however, Andy did not want this. this was Andy's choice and i have no issue with that.

We only have one program endorsed as yet, however, given the chance to endorse we will do so. I feel that getting terms that reflect what we want is a good step forward.

I am sure there are many avenues you can be useful you do not have to squeeze in on an area where we have already the best service.Let's said Andy is working on a terms change with a program then out of blue you send an email and try to work with them.

I agree in principal with you on this. A very good reason why i feel that the AGD and the GAU should work closely together.

I believe that Andy does not wish to work with us because he feels threatened by us or that we are looking to steal his niche or affect his business. We are not, i can quite categorically deny this.

Programs want to be endorsed by the GAU in the same way that we white list them. We will white list any program who agrees to arbitration, we will only endorse a program if their terms are fair. By fair, i mean they do not have a get out of jail clause.

To remove the get out of jail clauses has to be a good thing, this is why i am amazed that anyone can have issue with us on this. We are not trying to cause people a problem, we are trying to help. Surely people can see the value in working with us on this.

Andy can rest assured that we have no intention of developing any software to track terms as Andy does, he can also rest assured that we have no intention of trying to steal his customers. Far from it.

It may not serve affiliates best interests to have more than one spokesperson on this issue.It may also lead to programs not even bothering to work with ANYONE.

I am not sure that it would go this far, however, again a valid point and one that needs considering.

Anyone who reads andy's question to you can see he is upset and NOT OK with the 'Term Alerts 'path GAU is taking.I will leave Andy to speak for himself now but I have reread his question and the reply and I still feel the way I posted.

Sorry, however, they cannot. The question was a simple one, one that Andy knew the answer to. The only outcome of Andy posing this question was other peoples reactions, because both he and i knew the answer. It was without doubt posed to create a reaction from other people! I doubt it was posed to get the reaction that it did, however, it was certainly posted to get a reaction against the GAU. This was a punch below the belt and forced my abrasive reaction.

I may or may not have been a little strong in my answer, however, i am at the end of my tether with the situation. I am not the person who refuses to work with people. I have never said anything to bring Andy in to disrepute before this episode.

I wish that Andy would speak up, speak to me in private or voice to voice on the phone even. There is no need for all this drama it is benefiting neither one of us.

I have offered many olive branches in this thread and continue to do so. I want peace and understanding, i want to work with Andy not against him.

I have been called a liar, thief and unethical today, completely unfounded accusations and all i am doing is supporting affiliates.

All this has come from 1 question, a question from a person that already knew the answer. Go figure.

I have never read GAU mission , it really does not affect this thread .As my reply was in response to the attitude you took with Andy.

It very much affects this thread when you have to consider the facts to make a judgement, however, as your post is simply to defend Andy with no regard to any facts then it is of course irrelevant.

I would have hoped that you may have taken the time to respond to some of the points i made, although, i suppose if doing so would not be defensive of Andy then i can see why you choose not to.

The bottom line now is that this has been one hell of a day, there has been much upset and harm done in this thread.

It was needless and both myself and Andy need to move on and hopefully come to a truce.

[casinobonusguy]

Paul I don't think much good will come of me replying but here goes.Thank you for kinda seeing my point and I can see where you think your work will naturally need to Intergrate some terms stats down the line.It would have been nice if you left that area to Andy as he has proven to be so good at it .

I can also understand you do not want to hold up your growth by waiting on AGD to agree to some sort of deal together.Also I do not know how/why affstorm would agree to give you 15 days heads up on any terms ,that at best seems 'strange'.Is it so you have 15 days to get your work done?

Andy probably does not want to work with you in the sense of a partnership because he has done a fine job with his site alone , not sure if threatened is a good word here but infringed on maybe .Andy posted which put many eyeballs on this thread but it was your response that I think did the damage.I guess we will see in the coming weeks what GAU is going to do but I think it needs to find something 'unique' to claim as it's own.Your intentions may not be to steal Andy's Niche but the way you announce your terms came across to me as a replica of how Andy does his.

A year plus ago I offered to buy into AGD to help Andy as I felt he would need a decent about of cash to be able to survive the nastiness of this industry.He proudly refused as he wanted to build this on his own,he has built this from nothing .When you build something from nothing you instictively want to protect it so I can't fault Andy for that.

I will take one from my friend bb1webs/steve on this and apologise to everyone who read this thread ,to GPWA and all my peers for losing my manners for a second.

I will also add that lately most of the message boards have been more of a distraction from my business than a resource.I have a huge project I am starting immediately after LAC or whatever you want to call it so I will be spending less time here and more with my head down being more productive than i have been in last couple weeks.

[Chalkie]

Paul I don't think much good will come of me replying but here goes.Thank you for kinda seeing my point and I can see where you think your work will naturally need to Intergrate some terms stats down the line.It would have been nice if you left that area to Andy as he has proven to be so good at it .

I think it is good that we can have some constructive discussion now and i disagree with you, plenty of good will come from your reply.

I am happy to leave Andy to terms monitoring for sure and i agree he does an excellent job of this.

I can also understand you do not want to hold up your growth by waiting on AGD to agree to some sort of deal together.Also I do not know how/why affstorm would agree to give you 15 days heads up on any terms ,that at best seems 'strange'.Is it so you have 15 days to get your work done?

I am glad that you can see some reasoning for my actions and that maybe there is a place for AGD and GAU to come to an agreement that is both workable and constructive.

The reasoning for Affstorm to agree to the 15 days is that we would only endorse them on this basis. It was important enough to Affstorm to get our endorsement, to agree to this. It was felt that having the 15 day clause allowed for discussion with them if ever they decide to change their terms in a way that would upset affiliates. Such discussion may result in them realising that any change would be upsetting for affiliates leading to them abandoning the terms changes.

This was the only way that we felt happy to endorse their terms. I feel that the clause stating a program can change their terms leaving an affiliate no option but to accept or leave the program losing any future revenue is unfair and open to abuse. By having the 15 days grace at least it allows us to put a case forward before any changes are actioned.

The whole reasoning for the GAU to offer endorsement is to get rid of these unfair clauses that are rife in the industry. If by offering endorsement we can get these clauses deleted then it is surely a good step forward.

This is why we are involved in terms, we are not interested in any other way.

A perfect scenario would be to see all programs with terms that were completely fair and AGD monitoring them.

This is not the case presently, however, who knows what we may achieve in this.

If our endorsement is valuable enough to the programs and will get terms cleaned up then it will allow for a much better industry to trade in.

Andy probably does not want to work with you in the sense of a partnership because he has done a fine job with his site alone , not sure if threatened is a good word here but infringed on maybe .Andy posted which put many eyeballs on this thread but it was your response that I think did the damage.I guess we will see in the coming weeks what GAU is going to do but I think it needs to find something 'unique' to claim as it's own.Your intentions may not be to steal Andy's Niche but the way you announce your terms came across to me as a replica of how Andy does his.

I can appreciate what you are saying totally, i agree that Andy has done a fine job and that his post brought eyeballs here. I do also, however, feel justified in my reply, as this allowed for my defence to be heard, it allowed for me to state the facts, i only stated facts, no fiction and i certainly did not say anything that could be construed as defamatory or question Andy's ethics.

I feel that we could and would both have been much better to have discussed any issue we have privately, however, felt obliged to my members to point out the facts in support of the GAU.

Sadly this led to a crazy thread, i am devastated that both I and the GAU have been involved in such a frenzy, however, feel that the blame is not singular. I also feel that Andy realised that he was maybe unfair to me by posing the question and do not consider to majority of the upset to be of his doing. He may have started the ball rolling by posing his question, i may have done so by posting the original statement, however, the majority of the upset came after.

A year plus ago I offered to buy into AGD to help Andy as I felt he would need a decent about of cash to be able to survive the nastiness of this industry.He proudly refused as he wanted to build this on his own,he has built this from nothing .When you build something from nothing you instictively want to protect it so I can't fault Andy for that.

Very generous of you and very noble of Andy.

Much the same that Andy instinctively wants to protect the AGD, i likewise want to protect the GAU. It is my baby and i have worked very hard so far, i will do everything i can to protect it, whilst i try to develop it.

I will take one from my friend bb1webs/steve on this and apologise to everyone who read this thread ,to GPWA and all my peers for losing my manners for a second.

I too will go along with you on this, if i came across abrasive or unfair at any point i sincerely apologise. If i made a remark that others felt was aimed at them when they are completely innocent, again i apologise.

I do not apologise for defending myself against the people who called me a thief, that was totally unjustified and very hurtful.

I will also add that lately most of the message boards have been more of a distraction from my business than a resource.I have a huge project I am starting immediately after LAC or whatever you want to call it so I will be spending less time here and more with my head down being more productive than i have been in last couple weeks.

I wish you well with your project and hope you have a great time at LAC.

I will happily meet with you at LAC over a beverage of your choice, my shout, provided of course you promise not to throw it at me!

I really do hope that this thread will fade away now, there is no productivity in it and it is doing no one any favours.

I offer my time and support to anybody, there are plenty here and in this industry that can vouch for that. I am generous to a fault, very unlikely to fall out with anybody as a rule and the time i dedicate to the GAU is every waking hour. I do this purely to support affiliates and i will never, i repeat never, purposely engage in anything that would hurt or cheat anyone.

To those here that supported me today, previously and hopefully in the future i thank you from the bottom of my heart with all sincerety.

To those that chose to attack me today, i respect your views, i respect you loyalty to Andy and i respect your spirit. I just hope that, if not now, maybe one day i will gain or regain your respect and that you can understand what i represent.

[kwblue]

I will try to respond briefly in this thread. It was not my intention to see a bunch of flaming and posturing at all. You should be able to see from my history that I tend to stay far away from these 'forum war' type posts. As such, I will reply only to the facts and to the 'Andy said' or 'Andy does' or 'Andy knows' stuff. I am not going to go re-read the post, though, and quote out each person's words.

Before I begin: Some of the items mentioned below may be from the other thread. I have no idea and have no intention of looking... sorry!

Original Post


Post Intent

I did not make my post as a way to 'ruffle the feather's of GAU or to discredit GAU in any way. The intent was to determine if AGD was still going to be the 'Terms Alert Service' that GPWA uses. We have been the terms alert service here for several years. I DID NOT know that GAU was planning on doing terms alerts. That was never discussed in my PM's to Chalkie at AGD.

Non-Truthful Information


GAU Clause / AGD Approval

AGD has never 'approved' the term that GAU placed into the Affstorm contract. That is a complete misconception. I will not copy the PM's between Chalkie and myself, because that is (of course) unethical. However - this is how that situation went down:


1. GAU Contacted AffStorm to get a term implemented into their contract. That term would have been the following term:

The terms of this agreement may be modified by us at any time, and will announce changes 15 days before, and after consultation with Affiliate Guard Dog and Gambling Affiliates Union.

2. I was contacted by an affiliate manager who told me that AGD approved this clause. This was the FIRST time I heard anything about what GAU was planning on doing. AGD did not approve it, nor were we aware of it at the time.

3. Chalkie contacted me later that day about this clause. I told him I would check with the certification team in regards to the clause. [We do not approve terms 'willy-nilly']

4. After consultation with the team and a contract lawyer, we elected to not be a part of this term and asked Chalkie to remove AGD from the term. Our reasoning was simple. It does nothing to change the term, it only allows advanced notice (which we get from our certified programs anyway, in most cases).

End Result: AGD did NOT Certify this term prior to implementation as the affiliate program was led to believe.

With that said, we have no problem with the GAU clause. It is not predatory in any way and I told Chalkie that we would not 'rogue' a program on the basis of their terms insertion.

5. As a side note... We, very respectfully, declined to be a part of this clause. There was no ill-will on either of our parts. I like Chalkie, personally. Seems like a good dude.

NOTE: This is well-documented. These are the complete facts and can easily be validated.


AGD Approves Bad Terms

This is likely one of the most damaging in this thread.. As mentioned above, our certification team does NOT approve terms 'willy-nilly'.

The term of which Chalkie speaks (i.e., Terms can be changed....) is in 99% of the affiliate contracts (and 100% of Banking contracts). It is why AGD was built. To ensure that when terms are changed, we can both notify affiliates and go into mediation with the affiliate program in question. We have successfully mediated 97.8% of such instances.

As a note, 100% of the GAU whitelist also have this term implemented. So - putting a cloud on AGD for this term is problematic from several standpoints. We may have a different methodology, but we are not flawed because of it.

I believe that AffStorm is the only GAU 'endorsed' program as well, but could not find that on the GAU website. They also have this term and it is stated like this:

If any modification to the terms is unacceptable to you, your only choice is to terminate your affiliate account. Your continuing participation in the program will constitute your acceptance of any change.

GAU is non-profit, while AGD is profit

This is very deceptive. Unless someone has access to our books, this statement should never even be said.

AGD has been 'in the red' since day 1. By 'in the red', I mean this:

AGD Income = Homepage Webmaster Sponsorships + Platinum Sponsorships -
AGD Server/Hosting Costs - AGD Software Costs - AGD Continual Improvement + Andy's Affiliate Income

If it were not for the last piece (i.e., Andy's Affiliate Income), AGD would not exist. I spend more in all other items to come anywhere near profitability.

Not only that.... but Sponsorships at AGD are TRUE SPONSORSHIPS. This is mentioned to all parties and means that their $$$ goes towards improvement of the AGD site. This will become more evident in 2010, but we have spent a lot of money on programmers and upgrades.

That is something I feel I should not have to explain, BTW. But I did.


AGD feels threatened by GAU

Not in the very least. AGD has been doing this for 3 years and we have a certification team with loads of experience (and a contract lawyer when the need arises). There is no threat here, perceived or otherwise


My Final Thoughts:

I could have easily had my partners come in and reply within this thread. Many may not even know who those partners are. But that would have been unethical and full of trickery. But I am not a 'political' person and I dislike politicing. AGD was built upon a completely different model - transparency.

I waited for this thread to calm down because I do not participate in flame wars. There were many untruths being told about AGD both in this thread and another, but I did not let that 'get to me'. I felt that responding would only feed a frenzy that would either make AGD or GAU look bad.

I have no intention of making either look bad. Both organizations have good intentions.

[MichaelCorfman]

Both organizations have good intentions.

This is the statement that I think is important to focus on amongst all of the turmoil in this thread.

I'd like to call upon both AGD and GAU to take a step back from this thread.

And in the interest of trying to help things move to a better place I'd like to offer to help by working behind the scenes to help put matters in a place were the energy is focused on accomplishing as much as possible for the affiliate community at large.

It has been suggested that I should close this thread. I would much prefer to not to have to do that.

Michael

[giggles7p]

I am confused....

First i want to thank Andy....in my eyes you are the best and always will be. nough said.

GAU - I was one of the people who were looking forward to a union for affiliates to have for payment issues, rogue casino issues..etc...I did not plan of a union stepping in and having the power to "approve or disapprove" any programs, that is AGD's area.

What i wanted from an Affiliate Union was a place to go with my complaints, with any proof of a program stealing, lieing, cheating and having the GAU represent me with their resources to fight the good fight. I will not go to the Union for advice on whether a programs terms are acceptable....I have gone and always will go to AGD for that..

So in my opinion if the GAU was what i thought it was going to be....there would be no problem....AGD would handle one area for affiliates and GAU would be handling the other...

But i guess i was wrong on what a Union would be?

[universal4]

Thank you for responding personally in this thread Andy.

I specifically did not comment about this here, and although I did have a private conversation with Paul about the GAU, I felt this was something that needed to be discussed between Paul and Andy and I felt there was a lot of speculation that has now been cleared up by the official statements.

Rick
Universal4

[Betpartners]

Thank you for responding personally in this thread Andy.

I specifically did not comment about this here, and although I did have a private conversation with Paul about the GAU, I felt this was something that needed to be discussed between Paul and Andy and I felt there was a lot of speculation that has now been cleared up by the official statements.

Rick
Universal4

You really think it has been cleared up Rick

To be continued..........

[universal4]

No I didn't say that.

However, I will do everything I can so that I am NOT part of the problem as I do not want to be part of any ill feelings by either of the primary parties.

Rick
Universal4

[Betpartners]

No I didn't say that.

However, I will do everything I can so that I am NOT part of the problem as I do not want to be part of any ill feelings by either of the primary parties.

Rick
Universal4

ok mate i obviously misinterpretated what you meant

[Chalkie]

I am confused....

Pat the GAU about us carries the mission statement - exactly how it was when you joined as a member:

http://gamblingaffiliatesunion.org/a...ates-union-gau

[Chalkie]

After reading Andy's reply in this thread it has become very clear to me that there is more than one misunderstanding.

For this reason i will not respond here right now because I don't feel that would be the best approach.

I am going to discuss the issues with Andy in private, where we can hopefully cover the misunderstandings in a more amicable fashion. Once we have done so, i firmly believe that we can move on and that we will be complimentary rather than anything else.

I would ask that people do not post any more here for now, whilst Andy and I have chance to discuss the issues raised in this thread in private.

[kwblue]

Paul and I have had a lengthy conversation away from the furor of the thread.

We have come to an agreement that it was a simple misunderstanding that may have caused undue stress in this situation. I certainly apologize to the forum membership for any post I had that may have seemed 'out of line' or 'inappropriate'.

There are no ill feelings towards Paul or GAU from my side of the fence.

Michael: Feel free to close this thread. I have no problems with that. Paul, at the very least, should agree first, though.

[Chalkie]

As Andy has stated, we have had a lengthy conversation that was very productive and friendly.

There was misunderstanding on both sides and these have been put right.

I too apologise for anything that i said during this post that may have been unfair or unreasonable.

Both the GAU and i have no ill feeling towards Andy or the AGD in any way.

I am happy for this thread to be closed now.

[MichaelCorfman]

I'm very pleased that the two of you have talked at length and that the result is a positive one. I knew it would be.

As you have each requested, I will close the thread now.

Michael