anarchy � Glowleaf

Sep 27

Anarchy Online

Can of SPAM, Cardinal Sin, Doodling, Internet Marketing, Mind over Pixels, Moniez, Social abuse, Virtual War 6 Comments �

anarchy online

I have been coaching a friend who wants to get into affiliate marketing for a few months. Apart from the expected “how do I…” questions, another one pops up every once in a while.

“Am I allowed to do this?”

And my answer is always: “Yes, of course you can“.

The internet has grown so powerful so soon, that the international law systems cannot possibly keep up, often forcing them to extreme measures like convicting spammers the same as rapists.

Can you imagine yourself, a skinny, sun-deprived computer geek inside a jail full of murderers and rapists with tatoos?

Scary guy: “Hey, you, fish! What did you do to end up here?”

You: “Oh, I spammed Myspace…”

The inneficiency of the legal systems to keep up with the internet pace is so apparent, that we even had a course on that subject in the university. The laws regarding the internet are mostly rubbish, idiotic, over-reactive, and anticonstitutional.

I mean, come on, Youtube censorship for Turkey? Because some folks uploaded videos that the dictator did not like? I understand why a private company would comply to a country’s requests, but they shouldn’t. Laws protect everyone, and there should be international laws against censorship by anyone, even by a country of 60 million. Youtube should be allowed to say “Fuck off, we can show whatever we like” and lift the ban backed up by international laws.

The world wide web is a place of anarchy, and that is what makes all the power-holders in the world afraid of. Since they cannot control it, they try to change that. But:

As long as it does not lead you to jail, you can do whatever you want

Terms of service are not laws. They are house rules. You are not forced by anyone to follow them.

Adsense does not allow you to pair them with other contextual ads, but I have seen many sites with both adsense and adbrite. Their defense is: oh, adbrite is not contextual. Bullshit. Adbrite simply has a better model, allowing you to put your own keywords instead of letting a dumb bot pick up totally unrelated keywords from your page.
You cannot put adsense on porn/poker sites, unless you are big enough. You cannot put adsense on no content sites, unless you are a parking company with a 100.000 domain portfolio.
Digital point forums allow you to have only one account. They ban you if you post “Pm sent”.
Sphinn bans your domain due to a misunderstanding, and their email reply is “Oh, we know, but the script we use does not let us unban you. Sorry.” Really? I know 12 year olds who can remove the entry from the database…
Ebay bans you for cookie stuffing, while they charge 30$ listing fees even if your item does not sell. Who is the thief here? They bully their own rules simply because they became big, screwing the same people that made them what they are. (and no, cookie stuffing is not bad. If you believe that it is, go tatoo the word “sucker” on your forehead)
Merchants ban affiliates for cookie stuffing, where at the same time there are other methods of tracking without cookies, but noone uses them!
You cannot bid on competitor keywords in ppc. Since when? Do you know what competition means? Go tell a TV advertiser that he cannot outbid a competitor on prime time tv ad spot, he will laugh in your face.
Competitors nag you for registering their misstypes, threatening with “legal action“. Oh deer friedns, i kan mistype all I watn. If u dotn liek it, go regitser them domaisn urselves.
You cannot say “free” and charge people 8 euro per month for ringtones. But, supermarkets can have products paired with “free” gifts, included in the price. Credit cards can say 0% interest and charge 24%.

And the biggest crazy thing of them all:

You let a computer decide what site is better for a human.

Am I the only one that sees how irrational all that is?

You can do whatever the fuck you want, as long as it’s not illegal. And you need to understand the distinction between “against a company’s stupid TOS”, and “LAW”.

Want to buy links? Buy them. So what if Google says that it is bad?
Want to spam fora? Spam them. They should get better spam protection anyway.
Want to 302 hijack a page? Hijack it. If your competition does not like it, tell them to email a complaint to the guys who created internet protocols.
Want to create your own little corner of the internet, full of interlinked sites and a barrage of splogs? Do it. Ignore all those who say that its bad. They are idiots anyway.

There are no “SEO best practices”. It is just a fancy way of saying “comply with their rules”. I am going to make a shoking statement here:

You don’t really need Google to succeed online.

There, I said it. This blog gets 300 uniques/day, and only 4% is search engine traffic. And, risking to appear as showing off, but in reality I am not, I didn’t even try that hard to promote this blog. Sure, its nothing compared to what traffic big sites get, but its still better than the other 90% blogs in the niche.

Good guys get a kiss on the cheek, badass guys go home and fuck the prom queen. Why do you think its any different online?

Abuse whatever system you can find. Lie to make that sale. Undermine your competition. Be successful.

Lets close this post by making a sick and twisted version of a boyscout’s motto:

Break a rule every day.