Unsolicited Email

I got an email today that was interesting. It came from “Nicole” and she wanted me to put her text ads (no gambling or “questionable” sites like warez) on the bottom of my site. They weren’t flashy ads, just plain text. And she said she would pay me monthly. Now here’s the catch:

I had never heard of this service until last week, when I got asked about the very same company from one of my blog readers. Apparently they are making the rounds.

Is it a scam? I don’t think so. Is it worth doing? Here’s what I found out so far, and what is bothering me about the contact from Nicole…

Private Whois

The site Nicole contacted me about is - for all practical purposes at the moment - dead. In fact, it’s not truly dead, as I get between ten and thirty spammers that attempt to register every day. It’s a great board for testing out anti-spam measures in that regard. But here is what you get if you do a “whois” on that specific domain:

Registrant:
    PrivacyProtect.org
    Domain Admin        (contact@privacyprotect.org)
    P.O. Box 65
    All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
    Monster
    null,2680 AB
    NL
    Tel. +45.36946676

Creation Date: 26-Apr-2005
Expiration Date: 26-Apr-2011

The admin contact, technical contact, and billing contact all have the same information. I subscribe to a domain privacy service (it’s free) so that my real contact information is hidden from public view. So my first question to Nicole was, “How did you find me, and how did you associate my name with this site?” I will be most interested in her answer.

Banned From Google?

I read some other blogs and boards that seemed to imply that if you join the network of this specific company that you can get banned from Google’s Adsense program. Now given that I make a reasonable amount each month from Google with very little effort, I would hate to give that up. Especially for an unknown amount of revenue from this new service.

Your Site, or Someone Else’s?

I found other blogs / boards that implied that the company that contacted me was looking for me to effectively sign over my advertising rights to another network. Hm, I am not sure that made sense. What I mean is, there is an advertising cooperative at digitalpoint.com. From what some folks have said, the company that Nicole works for is trying to get permission from me to register my site(s) with this network, and serve as a middle man (person). I have asked Nicole if that is true, and if so, what her company offers that would make it more worth my while to join their network instead of joining the cooperative myself.

The Money Line

And the final question, how much? The site Nicole asked me about does not have any advertising on it at all right now. So assuming that using their service won’t get me kicked out of google, and there is a compelling reason for why I should use their service and not someone else, and assuming she has a satisfactory answer as to how she got my contact information… well, I just might want to know how much revenue would be coming in if I join their service.

I don’t know how “Nicole” will answer these questions, but it could be an interesting “live” exercise of how to handle advertising for a board. Stay tuned for details.