Cash For Tweets and Facebook Posts? Aussie Startup Pays You to Astroturf

An anonymous reader writes "While the celebs are already charging big money for their Tweets, an Aussie startup is ranking everyday people and turning them into product salespeople. After a successful start Down Under they have now hit Silicon Valley, but will Americans embrace selling to their friends?" From the article: "In a nutshell, individuals sign up to the Social Loot website and are assigned companies to promote to their circle of online friends. They are then paid on a sliding scale based on the amount of traffic their posts generate, and the quality of referrals and number of resulting sales. This is tracked by a code embedded in the links promoted by Social Loot’s spruikers."

Comments

This should be considered illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

This is advertising. It is also a lie. That's fraud, plain and simple.

Re:This should be considered illegal

[niftydude]

You make a good point. When the Alan Jones cash for comments scandal broke, he got absolutely slammed in court for not disclosing who was paying him to promote various things on his show.

The same should apply to tweets. They are broadcasts, and so the people making them should disclose whether it is advertising or not.

Re:This should be considered illegal

[similar_name]

What's the problem. This sounds like a revolution in web 2.0 synergies. You win and your friends win by getting vital decision making information regarding the brands they already love. For more information just follow this link?spammer=on&friends=off

Re:This should be considered illegal

[rtb61]

This has nothing to do with selling product. This is all about corruptly flooding forums with trolls, thousands of them. The marketing and promotional lie is selling products to friends the reality is poisoning every possible social network with an endless stream of bullshit marketing.

How long will an social site's last when you have a couple of hundred thousand trolls flooding the site with links, desperate to collect a couple of cents per click.

The guy is nothing but another mass trolling pig. Doesn't give a crap about people's social interactions, quite happy to bring them all crashing down, basically he wants to become a social forum spammer and that's what the arse hole is selling to corporations.

You can filter out some IP's but not hundreds of thousands of scattered ones, you can block robots but not hundreds of thousands of pathetic greedy ignorant trolls.

A purveyor of lies on a mass scale. Of course the trolls he employs will become the most hated people on the internet, kicked out of social network after social network.

Re:This should be considered illegal

[million_monkeys]

You make a good point. When the Alan Jones cash for comments scandal broke, he got absolutely slammed in court for not disclosing who was paying him to promote various things on his show. The same should apply to tweets. They are broadcasts, and so the people making them should disclose whether it is advertising or not.

Or you could just not be friends with people who will spam you with crap so they can earn 8 cents a week.

Re:This should be considered illegal

[Plunky]

Are you telling me that this is gonna kill Facebook and Twitter? Really? REALLY?

In previous years, usenet was a social gathering ground on the internet.. being unmoderated was its strength, but also its weakness and Canter & Siegel started a movement that killed it eventually. This has the capability to kill off twitter and facebook sure, but since they both have a controlling entity who could institute moderation then perhaps they can stave off demise by some quick thinking..

on a totally unrelated unbiased note

[Anonymous Coward]

Social Loot has the best service to offer so far. We testet all the available options besides Social Loot and Social Loot is the winner for us. Social Loot.

Re:on a totally unrelated unbiased note

[Chuck Chunder]

If only there was a website where you could pay people with mod points to mod for you.

Ah, excellent...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

According to TFA, this 'social loot' nonsense requires some sort of affiliate ID baked in(presumably to the usual bit of gibberish at the end of the URL) for tracking the spamming performance of their little minions.

With any luck, this should allow automated recognition of people who are astroturfing for these guys and it's always good to have a new way of identifying awful people. At a service level, the astroturf can then be removed, downranked by search engines, etc. At a personal level, we can each do our part by reminding those culprits we know that spammers are abhuman scum who go to the special hell, and deserve it.

In Britain...

[DemonGenius]

... this kind of business would be called "Shilling For Shillings".

Block It

[LordLucless]

I don't know about Twitter at least, but on Facebook, all the posts came from the Social Loot application. It took all of 5 seconds to "block all posts from Social Loot" to my wall, and now I need never know of its existence (except for Slashdot - thanks guys).

Just unfriend such so called "friends"

[grantspassalan]

After politely warning them to cease such activity. I cannot understand why there are so many people that want to involve the government in everything, which is what happens when you advocate something you don't like should be made illegal.

Let the advertisers know what you think

[mb.72]

I just emailed Minidisc Australia and Social Loot sales this email:
---
Hi guys

I'm a previous customer of yours (I purchased a Cowon J3 a couple of years ago, order no 40580), and previously I've recommended other people buy stuff from you.

I note that you are now using Social Loot advertising (having come across this company via slashdot post):
http://www.socialloot.com/minidisc_australia

My opinion is that the kind of 'shill advertising' promoted by Social Loot is about as low as it gets. As a result, I will:
a) no longer be recommending you, in fact I will be recommending against purchasing from you (and will explain my reasoning regarding the use of Social Loot)
b) no longer consider you for future purchases for myself

I realise I'm just one person. However, I am the 'go to guy' for a number of relatives and friends for technology matters, and based on past experience I am pretty sure that this will cost you a sale every three months or so. Over the course of one year I would estimate lost revenue at AUS$500 - AUS$1000.

If you stop using Social Loot advertising I will be happy to reverse my decision on this matter. Please note I've also cced this email to the Social Loot sales email address - unlike them, and apparently you, I am fine with being honest about my opinions.

Regards

Mike Both
----
If enough people do this, it could make a difference.

This is obviously spam-for-hire

[Arrogant-Bastard]

I recommend taking the following steps to defend your operations against spammer Gary Munitz:

1. Block all email to/from socialloot.com. (This might need updating if they register additional domains to avoid blocking. A very common spammer tactic is to use sequentially numbered domains, e.g., example01.com, example02.com, example03.com.)

2. Firewall out 122.252.6.0/24. Make the block is bidirectional so that nobody on your network can reach their allocation. (This will probably need updating if they receive an additional allocation.)

3. If you run a DNSBL or RHSBL, list the domain and the network allocation. If you maintain a list of spammer/phisher/abuser domains, add the domain.

4. If you run an ISP or similar operation, make it a policy that any user participating in this scam will be terminated immediately. Same for mailing lists, web forums, newsgroups, etc.

5. Do not hire anyone who has ever worked for socialloot.com. Make sure that words spread that working for spammer Gary Munitz is toxic.