With a title like “Dealing With Industry Hot Issues: Spam, Shaving, Fraud, Content Theft and Hacking,” my biggest concern with this seminar last Friday was that it had the potential to turn into a Jerry Springer show.With a title like “Dealing With Industry Hot Issues: Spam, Shaving, Fraud, Content Theft and Hacking,” my biggest concern with this seminar last Friday was that it had the potential to turn into a Jerry Springer show. Fortunately, the tone remained extremely professional, calm and informative throughout. When I had originally organized this seminar for the Cybernet Expo, I wanted all of the panelists to be prepared for a heated discussion since they were willing to put themselves “out there.” With YNOT Bob moderating, this highly esteemed panel consisted of George from http://www.pornprofit.com, Aaron Matthews from http://www.ampcontent.com, attorney Eric M. Bernstein from http://www.embalaw.com, Dr. Doug Wicks from http://www.ccbill.com and Quentin from http://www.topbucks.com. With probably over 50 years combined of adult industry, legal and Internet experience behind the speakers collectively, and a packed house in the audience, we were ready to roll.

Quentin boldly opened up the discussion by jumping right into the topic on everyone’s mind in and out of the industry and everywhere else on the planet: spam. “We all tolerate it because we want the sales and traffic, but we don’t want the heat,” he stated as a matter of fact. “Most affiliate programs offer strict looking terms, but these often are not enforced aggressively.” He also went on to discuss how the popular “opt-in” and “double opt-in” methods of email marketing work, but added that a lot of the annoying and inconvenient spam out there is poor email marketing similar to “casting a net into the ocean to see what you can catch.” He added that there have been instances where Webmasters spam out their emails but put something like “CNN” in the subject line. “We received a lot of angry calls and emails about that… one affiliate can cost you everything.” Essentially everyone wants the sales using these effective and cheap marketing tools, but a lot of it boils down to how much risk and reward you are willing to incur.

Attorney Eric M. Bernstein spoke up next, providing the harsh reality and wake up call that Webmasters don’t want to but should hear from an attorney. He stated that there are three new bills in Congress right now, 21 new prosecutors and that the Feds are really only after the high profile people caught doing something wrong, but nonetheless consider porn as an actual “security risk.” “The adult Internet shouldn’t be shoved in people’s faces. Politicians are reactive not proactive… sexual harassment, racketeering and copyright violations are the big Fed issues,” he stated. Eric also went on to say that it is very important that adult Webmasters are very vocal against child pornography and bestiality. “When a Webmaster calls me saying that he has a problem, to me that means ‘I have money.’ I want to hear an issue before it becomes a problem, because in this industry, Ashcroft is not the problem… it’s the attorneys. Be more concerned with civil lawsuits than criminal lawsuits.”

Doug Wicks covered the issues of spam, theft and fraud from hosting and processing company perspectives. “We are thrown into the middle… regulating is a tough thing to do.” Doug went on to explain that both hosting and eprocessing companies get a lot of complaints from law firms as well as customers and consumers, and that they do the best they can to contact offenders and shut them down. “Processing companies get a bad rap… we aren’t here to regulate or make life hard for everyone. We are here to help you and are willing to jump through hoops,” he explained. Eprocessors are routinely blamed for decisions made by Visa. He added, “Control means money to Visa… there isn’t going to be a ‘doomsday’ but we have to follow the credit card companies’ regulations.” It should also be noted that the new Visa regulations require all adult companies to have some U.S. presence.

Aaron then dove head first into the issues of content theft and 18 USC § 2257, stating first that content providers such as himself can and should protect and police each other from theft. “You can put your URL or a watermark on your content, but people can still crop it out… we have Digital Rights Management (DRM) now to help protect us.” Aaron then provided a startling statistic – he felt that a large majority of content producers don’t have 18 USC § 2257 on their sites, and worse yet, many adult Webmasters don’t even know what § 2257 is. He added, “Protect yourself. Let your content provider do their job. Have a link on your site to their physical address.” YNOT Bob chimed in about the recent PROTECT Act which essentially goes after people who don’t do their paperwork. Aaron then stated that it is wise to practice overkill when covering your ass legally, explaining that he has copies of records and all of his paperwork in several places.

Closing out the speeches was George who like everyone else took a very straightforward attitude. When discussing spam he stated, “I’m an aggressive marketer and it can be very lucrative.” He warned of the dangers of opt-in mailing (as opposed to double opt-in) saying that people can be maliciously added to lists. “It’s very important to filter out emails from your list with the words spam, and .org and .edu in the addresses.” He also cautioned against the use of harvested emails (no opt-in). “Surfers are smart and joins are getting more scarce, so trading email lists is big, but buying lists is a dirty game. If you are going to doing email, you need to use a wise subject line and have a valid ‘from’ and opt-out. It’s high risk, high reward… you are looking to get out the least amount of emails for the most possible joins.” He added that you don’t want to abuse your relationship with your host, as it may shut you down.

Later on in the afternoon, the roundtable discussions ensued which were essentially a small group continuation of the above seminar. The speakers had a chance to meet Webmasters in small groups, do some self-promotion, and really get some quality time going for everyone. All in all I was extremely impressed with this spam-free seminar and the well-prepared and intelligent group of speakers. As well, it took some serious balls in my opinion to be willing to speak at a seminar that by its controversial name alone can elicit plenty of anger and frustration.

The only drawback was that the seminar focused almost solely on spam, content theft, and legal issues, and really didn’t touch upon fraud, hacking and shaving issues (but I would later find out that fraud and hacking were well-covered in the State of the Industry seminar on Saturday afternoon.) Of course each one of those issues in and of themselves is a whole other seminar. I’d honestly have to say that this group did a phenomenal job given the time constraints.

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Editor-In-Chief for YNOT NEWS, Communications Director for YNOTMASTERS and Chat Board Administrator and can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com and jay@ynotmasters.com.

With a title like “Dealing With Industry Hot Issues: Spam, Shaving, Fraud, Content Theft and Hacking,” my biggest concern with this seminar last Friday was that it had the potential to turn into a Jerry Springer show.With a title like “Dealing With Industry Hot Issues: Spam, Shaving, Fraud, Content Theft and Hacking,” my biggest concern with this seminar last Friday was that it had the potential to turn into a Jerry Springer show. Fortunately, the tone remained extremely professional, calm and informative throughout. When I had originally organized this seminar for the Cybernet Expo, I wanted all of the panelists to be prepared for a heated discussion since they were willing to put themselves “out there.” With YNOT Bob moderating, this highly esteemed panel consisted of George from http://www.pornprofit.com, Aaron Matthews from http://www.ampcontent.com, attorney Eric M. Bernstein from http://www.embalaw.com, Dr. Doug Wicks from http://www.ccbill.com and Quentin from http://www.topbucks.com. With probably over 50 years combined of adult industry, legal and Internet experience behind the speakers collectively, and a packed house in the audience, we were ready to roll.

Quentin boldly opened up the discussion by jumping right into the topic on everyone’s mind in and out of the industry and everywhere else on the planet: spam. “We all tolerate it because we want the sales and traffic, but we don’t want the heat,” he stated as a matter of fact. “Most affiliate programs offer strict looking terms, but these often are not enforced aggressively.” He also went on to discuss how the popular “opt-in” and “double opt-in” methods of email marketing work, but added that a lot of the annoying and inconvenient spam out there is poor email marketing similar to “casting a net into the ocean to see what you can catch.” He added that there have been instances where Webmasters spam out their emails but put something like “CNN” in the subject line. “We received a lot of angry calls and emails about that… one affiliate can cost you everything.” Essentially everyone wants the sales using these effective and cheap marketing tools, but a lot of it boils down to how much risk and reward you are willing to incur.

Attorney Eric M. Bernstein spoke up next, providing the harsh reality and wake up call that Webmasters don’t want to but should hear from an attorney. He stated that there are three new bills in Congress right now, 21 new prosecutors and that the Feds are really only after the high profile people caught doing something wrong, but nonetheless consider porn as an actual “security risk.” “The adult Internet shouldn’t be shoved in people’s faces. Politicians are reactive not proactive… sexual harassment, racketeering and copyright violations are the big Fed issues,” he stated. Eric also went on to say that it is very important that adult Webmasters are very vocal against child pornography and bestiality. “When a Webmaster calls me saying that he has a problem, to me that means ‘I have money.’ I want to hear an issue before it becomes a problem, because in this industry, Ashcroft is not the problem… it’s the attorneys. Be more concerned with civil lawsuits than criminal lawsuits.”

Doug Wicks covered the issues of spam, theft and fraud from hosting and processing company perspectives. “We are thrown into the middle… regulating is a tough thing to do.” Doug went on to explain that both hosting and eprocessing companies get a lot of complaints from law firms as well as customers and consumers, and that they do the best they can to contact offenders and shut them down. “Processing companies get a bad rap… we aren’t here to regulate or make life hard for everyone. We are here to help you and are willing to jump through hoops,” he explained. Eprocessors are routinely blamed for decisions made by Visa. He added, “Control means money to Visa… there isn’t going to be a ‘doomsday’ but we have to follow the credit card companies’ regulations.” It should also be noted that the new Visa regulations require all adult companies to have some U.S. presence.

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