The Great Divide

The two sides -- adware provider and security researcher -- couldn't be farther apart, and Zango's Stratz made it sound as if that would always be the case.

"We know where Boyd and others like him stand, and they know where we stand," Stratz said.

Ouch!

Well that stings, it really does. I mean, here I am, policing your affiliates - sorry, your employees - with another "accident" that was forgotten about till I went and dug it up, buried-treasure style...Y'aaaar....and then it's catty comments time!

It's not like you people are forever wandering into crapfests, is it? Oh wait....Yapbrowser kiddy pr0n, Botnets in a "how did he ever manage to sign up" stylee and (of course) the Amazing Racist fiasco, where you had a big whinge at me because I said partnering with racist scum sucks ass, then pulled your software weeks later when nobody was looking!

....lol.

As for this latest shambles, the numerous comments made are contradictory at best, and downright confusing at worst. As I mentioned in an update to the Zango on Myspace writeup:

The profiles were a mistake, countered a Zango spokesman Monday. According to Zango's Steve Stratz, the two spotted by Boyd were created by a company developer based in its Montreal office......Those two test accounts were actually created by one of our developers who was exploring possible opportunities, but he didn't realise it was Zango business practice not to target MySpace," said Stratz. "He should not have been doing this, and we want to tell MySpace that we didn't mean to target them." The developer, said Stratz, would soon be deleting the profiles.

Zango have made it clear they're not responsible for "policing the sharing of their content", so here we have a major contradiction. On the one hand, they're saying "please Myspace, don't be mad. We didn't mean to break your rules and we agree, our movies should not be on Myspace".

On the other hand, they're also saying that "we're not responsible for policing people pushing our software in this way", so surely the end result will eventually be....more of these moviefiles on Myspace?

Is it just me, or does this not make sense?

Zango, however, countered that its license agreement "could not be any clearer" and that it would be obvious to anyone that the download was not originating with MySpace.

Wait...so, we're supposed to accept that kids will know where this is coming from due to the licence agreement being displayed. But what about the Myspace Terms and Conditions displayed when you sign up? Did this employee not take note of those when he decided to do his little experiement? This seems to be another contradiction to me. People must take note of Terms and Conditions, but only when it suits them?

.....whoops.

"We get applications from MySpace account holders all the time," said Monlux, "but MySpace has a policy of not allowing any third-party advertising. Partners need to own a top-level domain, as well, and obviously MySpace profiles don't meet that requirement. Those two rules basically say that we're not going to be contracting with anyone on MySpace."

Yeah, but hold on there a second!

We are NOT talking about kids on Myspace trying to open up accounts with Zango then placing the content on their sites. That is not the big, fat hairy deal here.

We ARE talking about websites such as Myspacegraphicalhelp, (currently displaying a huge "Add me to your Myspace" banner on the frontpage) that have potentially already got an account with Zango, then try to convince visitors to those sites to place those videos onto their Myspace profile.

Huge, massive, colossal, mighty slab of truth falling out of the sky difference.

And like I said - NONE of those sites even bother to mention that in return for those kids hosting the videos, they will be pushing Zango from their profiles. Find any sort of disclaimer mentioning this here (Warning - this site sometimes throws up dubious popups. Visit at your own risk) and you win a coconut.

If you think this method of distribution is somehow "legitimate", then I guess Zango is from Venus and Paperghost is from some planet that regularly kicks ass and takes names.

"He should not have been doing this, and we want to tell MySpace that we didn't mean to target them."

In other words, please don't kill us, Tom.

But then as the article says:

"A partner can't place Zango content on a MySpace site," said Monlux, "but if someone goes to a partner's site, takes Zango content, and puts it on his MySpace profile, that's not a violation of our terms of agreement."

In other words, if someone on MySpace decides to insert video clips or games (which Zango also produces) on his or her profile, that's okay with Zango.

So with all of the above weighing heavily on our minds, it looks like we do know where people like me stand.

Right over there, on top of the "Zango pulled from Myspace" mountain.

It's a hell of a view ;)