Re: searchhound.com & mycomputer.com

From: Steve Harrison <merlin_at_paypermaster.com>
Date: Tue 26 Jun 2001 13:14:18 -0500

No comment regarding mycomputer.com, but a rather
vigorous one regarding SearchHound.

GRANT MORGAN <grant_at_wineshijo.com> WROTE:

>I got a sort of spam email from searchhound implying
>that I was halfway through registering with them. THere
>a paid search engine. Anyone use them. I am a bit
>leery of using them after getting a questionable email
>from them.

Where Mr. Morgan is abundantly gracious in calling the
email from SearchHound a "sort of spam," and indicating
that SearchHound was "implying" he had registered a
site/domain with them, I'm inclined to no such
graciousness.

After having confirmed the email referenced by Mr.
Morgan is of the same template as the several I received
from SearchHound, there should be no quibble in calling
it an outright spam (UCE). But what is most distressing
about this particular piece of junk mail is: a) who it
came from; and b) the significance of how the spam was
intended to work for SearchHound.

Every once in awhile, in nearly any community newspaper,
you'll read of some bunch of scamsters moving through a
neighborhood looking to profit on "confusion." Quite
often, the elderly are their prime targets. Maybe
they'll believe that they simply forgot that they agreed
that this bunch of seedy creeps should drop by and
resurface their driveway, or install some gizmo on their
roof, or whatever. An hour later, after having done a
grotesquely sub-standard job of it, with dubious materials,
they're back knocking on the door with their hand out
wanting paid (if the mark was so cagey they couldn't
collect up-front).

On the Internet, selling anything by means of imparted
confusion is no less of a scam. As much as I've tried to
give SearchHound the benefit of the doubt on this one,
there's little wiggle room to perceive those spam emails
as attempting to impart anything other than confusion.
Confusion that involves real money -- to make a sale.

What made the SearchHound spam all the more confusing,
and perturbing, to me is that I DO have advertiser
accounts in their PPC search engine. And as random luck
would have it, one of the spams happened to target a
business web site I'm actively bidding keywords for in
SearchHound. Naturally, I took the email to be a heads-up
that something was amiss with my advertiser account.

After burning nearly an hour in SearchHound, head-scratching
and trying to figure out what was wrong with my account,
I finally went back to the spam email. Sure enough, the
email was citing a different username and password for
that same business. It was a new account, quite apparently
initiated by SearchHound.

I logged-in to my new advertiser account and, indeed,
discovered that little remained to be done except to
enter a few more contact info details, add some keywords
and bids, and of course fund the account.

I find it abundantly distressing and do not hesitate in
calling it unconscionable that a heretofore class act
like SearchHound would pull such a stunt. Not only was
that a true spam email, Mr. Morgan, it was a spam that
embodied features (tricks) that few junk mails could
ever sink to:

1) It cost me about an hour of time that I could
ill-afford to waste checking out a quite believable
bluff. As with most marketers, I get quite a load of
spams every day and can usually dump them in whole blocks
at a glance. But this one had the stamp of some (former)
credibility, having come from "Ashley" at SearchHound.
Likewise, more than one of the spams targeted a web site
I own that I may very well have (or actually had) registered
in SearchHound.

2) They actually had entered the several domain names
and/or business web sites they discovered I own into
SearchHound. You're right, Grant. The process was largely
completed to establish a new advertiser account with them.
This constitutes a level and depth of intrusion far beyond
the usual nuisance aspect of spam.

3) Trickery as a crude joke is one thing, but trickery that
preys on confusion -- and involves real money -- is quite
another. The tactic employed by SearchHound on this little
exercise would not seem improperly characterized to be
called an outright scam.

Ironically enough, I only recently published a quite
positive review of SearchHound. Sadly, there will now be
an addition to that review, and the revising of a
recommendation of SearchHound as being a up-and-comer PPC
search engine worthy of consideration.

If they truly believe that recent flurry of emails was an
honest and straightforward marketing exercise, who could
recommend that an advertiser invest their advertising
dollars with them? If their naivete truly runs that deep,
wouldn't it be odd to presume they could effectively and
accurately manage a complex thing like a PPC search engine
-- and all that money?

On the other hand, if they truly DID know and understand
they were crossing the line on ethical marketing practices
-- if they are, or have become, common scammers -- what
confidence could an advertiser have in the security of
their credit card info, or that click-thru charges would
be accurately, not to mention honestly, accounted?

As with most scams and even ordinary spams, the sad truth
is that it will work. At least to some degree on a
short-term basis. Some will follow SearchHound's "Judas
goat" lead and complete the sign-up by funding their
pre-fabricated account. Maybe it'll even serve them
favorably and they'll see some cost-effective traffic.
SearchHound did them a favor, right?

But the long-term repercussions of that spam campaign may
very well bode a different outcome. If nothing else, a
formerly respectable level of trust and integrity would
appear to have been sacrificed for whatever short-term
gains may be realized.

Bad dawg. Baaaaad dawg, SearchHound.

[flack vest, gas mask, helmet? -- check]

Steve Harrison ~ Pay-Per Master
http://www.paypermaster.com
merlin_at_paypermaster.com



Received on Tue Jun 26 2001 - 13:14:18 CDT