On a recent visit in to check email on AOL (I'm trying to wean everyone off of that address but there are a few diehards), I was surprised to get an Instant Message offering a link saying "Welcome to CyberThrill". As you may recall, CyberThrill has been in the news a lot lately. A Forbes article was less than complimentary and other news reports discuss legal fights with webmasters. This somewhat tenuous situation is complicated by the fact that the site is operating unlicensed out of the Bahamas which has no internet licensing.
Anyway, I engaged the gentleman who sent me the IM to see what the set-up was. He's apparently a regular player with that site who partakes of a multi-level marketing type deal with CyberThrill. He told me that he harvested my name from those in AOL who've added gambling as an interest area to their profile (silly me!). He receives 20 cents every time someone plays a game there. When I asked him if he was making any money, he said that he'd just started this week and had made one dollar.
A marketing ploy used by an increasing number of sites to bring people in the cyberdoors, CyberThrill claims to have 35,000 referral agents signed up.
What seemed particularly ironic was the fact that CyberThrill posts an anti-spamming policy which reads:
"Cyber Thrill Casino operates one of the largest advertising systems on the Internet under which any Webmaster, big or small, can place Cyber Thrill banners on the Web sites and get paid for every click. Of Cyber Thrill tens of thousands of Webmasters, there a few who use illegal techniques such as unsolicited and often misleading e-mail messages, newsgroup postings, and other similar techniques known as "spam". Please be assured that spamming of any kind is completely against Cyber Thrill policies. As soon as we find out that an advertiser participating in the Advertising Program is a spammer, his account is terminated and NO payment is ever made.
Please help us enforce our anti-spam policy. If you ever see a spam "promoting" Cyber Thrill, e-mail us immediately at abuse@cyberthrill.com with the details of the incident. We will promptly terminate the spammer's account, disable his links, and take other necessary actions.
Please help us keep Cyber Thrill advertising systems 100% free of spammers while continuing to offer every Webmaster, big and small, an opportunity to receive advertising income for his Web site. Promptly report every incident of spam "promoting" Cyber Thrill, to abuse@cyberthrill.com.