Ad Hijacking

  • Resolved analyzes

    (@analyzes)


    9 years, 10 months ago

    In the last update, WP-slimstat chose to ENABLE their automatic ads.

    From them:

    Send anonymous data about user agents to our server for analysis. This allows us to contribute to the BrowsCap opensource project, and improve the accuracy of WP SlimStat’s browser detection functionality. It also enables our transparent ads network. No worries, your site will not be affected in any way. The extra income is completely invested in making WP SlimStat a better product, as you can see from our FREE PREMIUM support service that most of our users love.

    OUR SITES WERE AFFECTED!!!!

    I don’t know where you’re from, but unauthorized ad hijacking of a website is not only immoral, but when it also messes up the site as well IE: adding “http://wwww.wordpress.org” to EVERY post on a site that has thousands of posts and over 450k page views per day – causing undue hours of work to find the issue – just so you can hijack someone’s site to show YOUR ads, is also unethical.

    I want to know where we can get a statement of number of ads shown on our site, revenue gained from said unauthorized ads (especially on a site like ours that PROMOTES AD FREE WEBSITES) So that we may file for our lost revenue, and percentage of revenue from OUR sites having to host YOUR ads involuntarily.

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-slimstat/

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    9 years, 10 months ago

    Sorry, but can you provide a link that explains or demonstrates what you are referring to?

    You’re getting ads inserted into your blog?

    Edit: Why is wp-slimstat loading this off of a CDN?

    http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/wp-slimstat/3.6.3/wp-slimstat.js

    @camu Can you explain this part?

    It also enables our transparent ads network. No worries, your site will not be affected in any way. The extra income is completely invested in making WP SlimStat a better product, as you can see from our FREE PREMIUM support service that most of our users love.

    If you are serving advertisements without the user’s explicit permission then that’s probably not a good thing.

    Edit of the edit:

    OK this may be a problem and I hope the author can chime in.

    https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-slimstat/tags/3.6.3/wp-slimstat.php#L1164

    That’s tracking of the users and gathering information. If that’s done without the explicit approval of the plugin user then that’s not allowed.

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/about/guidelines/

    See #7.

    7. No “phoning home” without user’s informed consent. This seemingly simple rule actually covers several different aspects:

    • No unauthorized collection of user data. For example, sending the admin’s email address back to your own servers without permission of the user is not allowed; but asking the user for an email address and collecting if they choose to submit it is fine. All actions taken in this respect MUST be of the user’s doing, not automatically done by the plugin.

    This line worries me too.

    https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-slimstat/tags/3.6.3/wp-slimstat.php#L1159

    I get concerned when I read function ads_print_code as that seems to retrieve content from external sites.

    Plugin Author Jason Crouse

    (@coolmann)

    9 years, 10 months ago

    Analyzes and Jan,

    I am sorry for the time you spent chasing a possible intruder. That was not my intention, and actions will be taken so that it doesn’t happen again. As for the IMMORAL part, I look at things from a different point of view. The extra income generated was completely invested in making WP SlimStat a better product. Look at the support forum:

    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/excellent-plugin-and-terrific-support?replies=2#post-
    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/so-far-so-good-86?replies=1#post-
    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/it-works-as-announced?replies=1#post-

    People seem very happy about the prompt support we offer FOR FREE. I said we, because with the extra money, I am able to pay a friend of mine to answer most of the support questions, so that I can focus on coding new functionality. In these bleak economic times, being able to help people in need by offering them a way to make some money on the side doesn’t seem to me such a “reprehensible” action.

    As you may know, we also sell paid add-ons for SlimStat, but after the initial enthusiasm among our users, now sales are down 50%. We have very competitive and reasonable prices for our add-ons, but still people won’t buy them.

    That’s because, like many articles say, the average open source user takes for granted that s/he can have everything for free, and that it doesn’t make sense to spend money for software.

    Don’t get me wrong, as a web developer, I love my plugin and the countless hours spent in improving it are our way to contribute to the GREAT WordPress community. WP SlimStat has been around for 8 years now, and I’m really passionate about what I do.

    Maybe it’s time to move on and pull the plug (and the plugin) by converting it into a PAID software and selling it on CodeCanyon.

    I find quite insulting to be compared to some sort of thief. I didn’t think I would deserve such a harsh treatment after giving people a powerful tool like SlimStat. You’re entitled to your opinions, of course. However, you’re looking at this flaw forgetting all the rest. WP SlimStat is a great software, with top-notch functionality. Let’s not forget that!

    Regards,
    Camu

    PS: I am going to release an update by tomorrow night (Eastern Time) that disables the incriminated code.

    Plugin Author Jason Crouse

    (@coolmann)

    9 years, 10 months ago

    I’ve always liked Yoast’s post on the subject:

    https://yoast.com/selling-wordpress-plugins/

    Time to jump ship!

    Too bad that 25k users will not be able to enjoy the new features that I’m working on FREE OF CHARGE anymore (network-wide settings, heatmaps, etc).

    cloudduster

    (@cloudduster)

    9 years, 10 months ago

    Camu, I love your plugin and after about a month of testing in my own site, I started installing it in my clients’ sites. This post made me think twice.

    Although I’m totally with you with the ads and the need to earn, but what will happen if my 30 installed free plugins will start to show off ads on my site? Messy, I guess.

    Plugin Author Jason Crouse

    (@coolmann)

    9 years, 10 months ago

    Ads were never shown to humans. Only bots. I respect my users 😀

    Sloba

    (@slobajossi)

    9 years, 10 months ago

    Camu, I hope you can find the way to monetize the project. You certainly deserve it, but showing ads isn’t a good approach, especially if that’s the default setting.

    As you may know, we also sell paid add-ons for SlimStat, but after the initial enthusiasm among our users, now sales are down 50%. We have very competitive and reasonable prices for our add-ons, but still people won’t buy them.

    Well, more than 3 weeks ago I submitted a ticket on your site with pre-sales questions. I never received the answers even though I would be satisfied with Yes/No answers.

    I’ve opened a thread here on the forum because I thought that something is wrong with your ticketing system:
    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/slimstat-addons?replies=3

    I was ready to purchase the add-ons the same day if you’ve answered those questions. But I never got the answers. Because of this approach I started looking for alternative plugin.

    I would like to see your Premium plugin soon and would probably buy it, but it has to be supported. That means, if something is unclear to me, as a customer or as a potential customer, I need to have that settled.

    Electric Studio

    (@electric-studio)

    9 years, 10 months ago

    I’m all for making money from your hard work, but ads that pull in dodgy code is not the way, it’s only going to make it look shady and you’ll loose trust from the community.

    Here’s a few suggestions on how to monetise.

    1. Sell a premium version, with support
    2. Show secure ads in admin
    3. Sell a third party hook, like for WooCommerce at extra cost
    4. Charge for support
    5. Offer a hosted version, with backup of stats etc.

    That’s just my brain dump, I’m sure you’ll come up with a good way to do this, just don’t add dodgy links.

    Plugin Author Jason Crouse

    (@coolmann)

    9 years, 9 months ago

    Electric Studio, #1 seems the way to go 🙂 Basically that is what most premium plugins do on CodeCanyon. We are looking into this.

    Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    9 years, 8 months ago

    *Reads. Drinks coffee. Then drinks more coffee.*

    I think in this case I can get Universal Buy In™ for closing this topic down. That almost never happens. 😉

    @thunderpeel Yes, the thing that camu was previously doing was not allowed and very questionable but it’s been dealt with and you really do not have to stir that up again. There’s just no point; it’s not an issue any longer.

    If you have a support topic for this plugin then please consider posting a new one yourself.

    https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wp-slimstat#postform

    But keep it civil if you do. If you’re going to continue this argument then I’m sorry but that will get closed down.

    Haha, apparently you don’t know that posts cannot be deleted (unless you’re a moderator) after 30 minutes. And why should I delete mine?

    @camu Really?

    You’ve a reputation to maintain, you sell a commercial product (add-ons), you help many users in these forums (much thanks for that BTW). Perhaps you may want to consider that going forward when you want to reply “awkwardly” (which is the best euphemism I can think of on limited coffee at the moment).

    Either way, I am closing this topic. It’s just not productive anymore.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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