9 February, 2006

In defense of the Traffic Exchange Industry

My name is Rich Parker, and I am the founder of VariSearch.  Among other things, I have written the VS-TrEx traffic exchange software, now at over 60 sites, and the VS-TEN network, which connects nearly 200 traffic exchanges together for mutual benefit.

Since Storm Pay changed its policy on January 30th, and the major dispute with 12 Daily Pro erupted, there has been a huge amount of name-calling and finger-pointing going on.  The intent of this letter is not to find fault, but to try and repair some of the collateral damage that is being done.

Storm Pay personnel have accused 12 Daily Pro of being a 'ponzi scheme'.  I can not respond to this: I am not a lawyer, and do not have access to their books. 

However, when someone generalized that to say that "all autosurf programs are a scheme", and this was followed by at least one newspaper article blaming "autosurf systems", I felt I had to stand up and try to clear things up a bit.

Paid-To-Surf is not representative of all surf systems

This may sound like it makes sense, but I feel it needs to be cleared up.  For some reason (probably lack of technical knowledge), the first people making the statement were discussing a paid-to-surf system that misrepresented itself.  Because that system happened to be an auto-surf program, the reporter simply said 'auto surf'.

I believe that this is a grave misconception on three fronts:

1. Paid to Surf is not necessarily a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme.  If the site has enough paying advertisers, and limits the membership to only view paid ads, there is no pyramid, and the business model is sustainable.
    
2. Paid to Surf is not exclusively auto-surf.  In fact, there are more paid-to-surf manual systems than there are auto system.  Those who are willing to pay for their ad space generally want a human clicking, indicating they've seen the ad.
    
3. Auto Surf systems are not always paid to surf.  Again, a brief survey both inside and outside of the VS-TEN network shows that the extreme majority (> 75%) of sites are not paid-to-anything.  They are simple, legitimate advertising systems, run by people who want to build a promotional system.

For those who read the article...

On February 8th, 2006, the Leaf Chronicle, of Clarksville, Tennessee, USA, printed an article describing the issues in the Storm Pay versus 12 Daily Pro dispute.  Unfortunately, there were several mis-statements in that article, the most important one (to me) was:

"Auto-surfing programs are thinly veiled pyramid schemes," according to a BBB statement.

First, I contacted the Clarksville BBB to get the full quote.  After all, a common mistake of a journalist is to not take the full context of the quote.  Here is the original statement:

"Investment programs based on auto-surfing may be thinly veiled pyramid schemes."

Read it carefully, and you'll see that the BBB's original statement is true, but the reporter's quotation of it is a mis-characterization.  That small edit changed a statement of fact (some phone calls are from con artists or identity thieves) to a generalization (all phone calls are bad).

One other inaccuracy from that article stated that there were 19,000 complaints against Storm Pay.  That was also not correct: there were 19,000 inquiries.  Some of these will become complaints, but many will not.  I believe that's called "sensationalistic journalism", or the way a writer can make a mountain out of a molehill.  Understand that I am not trying to make light of a grave situation: Storm Pays actions have threatened the livelihood of a great number of people, but they are within their bounds to temporarily suspend any account when doing an investigation.

Once I found out what I needed to now, I called and left voice mail for the reporter on this article, and will contact the editor of the paper on Friday if I don't hear back.  Basically, this mis-quote will make someone who is not familiar with the industry afraid of anything called "auto-surfing".

Even if it is retracted or corrected, some damage has been done

I went to an 'emergency conference' being held by a manual-exchange owner, and tried to raise this point: ALL exchange owners should consider that statement an attack on their integrity.

His response was "well, I run manual exchanges... just don't trust those autosurf programs", shortly after which I was unceremoniously booted from the conference.

While his action was rude, it wasn't too surprising.  Like others, he is lumping all auto-surf programs together, and, as I pointed out above, that's not just inaccurate, it is misleading.

It is also dangerous: Someone will discover that many paid-to-surf programs are manual surf programs, and, following that logic, will say "oh, so manual-surfs are scams, too". 

The distinction between "a surf program" and "a paid-to-surf program" MUST be made.  Without making this distinction, we could see major damage in our industry, as customers will believe that there is no one to trust out there.  If you've run a business for any length of time, you have to know that trust is a key factor in any significant amount of sales.

So, please, watch how you discuss this topic

The last thing our young industry needs is a 'civil war'.  There is enough room in the market for all the legitimate auto-surf and manual-surf programs there are, and hundreds upon hundreds more.  There are huge, untapped markets of people who could benefit from our services, and we need to educate those people.

For the traffic exchange industry to grow, and for us to provide the best benefit to the advertiser, as well as the surfer, it is important for us all to stick together during periods of name-calling and confusion.  Realize that most traffic exchange owners are business people, simply trying to earn an honest living, and not trying to work some "get rich quick" scheme.

Yes, there are mercenaries out there, and crooks, just like in the "real world".  But I think that in the traffic exchange industry, the extreme majority of owners are just straight small-business people.

How you can help prevent damage to the industry

Please, help make the distinction, when people say "auto-surf", and mean "paid-to-surf", please gently correct them.  This will help to prevent further damage to the traffic exchange industry as a whole.  I mention "gently", because with all these money-issues involved in this case, nerves will be frayed, and a lot of people stand to lose a great deal.

Remember that we don't know enough to know who is to blame here:

As of 8 February, 12 Daily Pro has not been charged with anything.  Even if they do get charged, they are innocent until proven guilty.  Ultimately, even if they are guilty of something, that does not mean other P-T-S systems are corrupt, and it certainly should not be considered a reflection on the auto-surf community at large.

Storm Pay has appeared to go on a "rampage", and have suspended accounts of several small traffic exchanges that I know of... most of whom have no involvement in investing or any such foolishness.  While some people think this criminal behavior, they have not been charged with anything at this point, and like anyone else, they are innocent until proven guilty.  This could very well be an overreaction on their part, or their banks' part.  Only time will tell.

I hope this might help give you some of the words or thoughts about what to do when you hear a whole industry being smeared, based on the alleged actions of one of its members.

Richard F. Parker, Founder
VariSearch

richp@varisearch.com