Brad Callen’s PPC Web Spy – Use At Your Own Risk
By Anna Johnson on February 4th, 2009I recently received some emails promoting Brad Callen’s new, free Firefox plugin, PPC Web Spy. It sounded like a neat plugin. After all, PPC Web Spy shows you what words Google Adwords advertisers are targeting (pretty useful) and I’ve been impressed by other software Brad Callen has put out (e.g. SEO Elite). But there’s a ‘dark’ side to PPC Web Spy…
I discovered this dark side when, on Sunday February 1, 2009, I opted in to download the plugin and then saw the offer for the upgrade – PPC Web Spy Platinum.
As I read the sales copy I became aware that by upgrading to the Platinum version I could:
- Distribute the free version of PPC Web Spy to my subscribers, friends, etc.
- If one of my subscribers, e.g. Jim, installed PPC Web Spy and then performed a search on Google, PPC Web Spy would generate two additional search results and put them at the top of Google’s organic search results (as seen by Jim). These would look exactly like regular organic listings, only they would be affiliate offers generated from PPC Web Spy’s database of Clickbank, Paydotcom and Amazon offers, with MY affiliate link in each URL.
- If Jim clicked on either of these links and bought the product, I would get a commission.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?
Or does it?
It quickly dawned on me that nowhere in the sales copy for the free version of PPC Web Spy did it say that, when using the plugin, each time I searched on Google, PPC Web Spy – NOT Google – would generate the first two listings in the ‘organic’ search results.
It turns out that by ticking the ‘I accept the terms and conditions’ box, I was in fact agreeing to this. In fact, here’s a screen grab of the relevant terms (click to see an enlarged version):
If you can’t read the text in the image, here’s the text (as at February 2, 2009):
USER AND LICENSEE UNDERTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE, THAT THEIR USE OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, AMONG OTHER FUNCTIONS, ADDS TWO (2) NEW GOOGLE LISTINGS TO THE NUMBER ONE (1) AND NUMBER TWO (2) SEARCH ENGINE POSITIONS, IN THE FORM OF AFFILIATE LINKS. USER AND LICENSEE, BY THEIR USE OF THE SOFTWARE, EXPRESSLY GIVE THEIR PERMISSION AND ACCEPTANCE FOR THIS FUNCTION OF THE SOFTWARE.
I don’t think omitting mention of this from the sales copy was any mistake. I’m a lawyer who has written my fair share of terms and conditions and even I didn’t read the terms before signing up! I bet most people wouldn’t read the terms, either, which is, I suspect, the intention.
And although some will argue that including the point about the two affiliate links in the terms and conditions alleviates the need for it to be mentioned in PPC Web Spy sales copy… I’m not sure that flies.
I can’t comment on the law in the U.S. or other jurisdictions, but under Australian law omitting something as material as this from the sales copy and relegating it to some very non-obvious terms may well amount to misleading and deceptive conduct.
So as much as the viral aspect of PPC Web Spy is rather compelling – for a Platinum member, there’s a strong incentive to promote PPC Web Spy to others, and for Brad Callen, this is surely a great list builder – the lack of transparency concerns me.
That’s why I say: use it at your own risk.
And if Brad Callen or anyone else behind PPC Web Spy cares to bring what seems to be a pretty cool tool back on a more transparent footing, why not tell people upfront (I.e. in the sales copy) what they are really signing up for?
And if that deters people from signing up (funny that), remove the two affiliate links and ‘other functions’ from the tool, and continue promoting it.
Plenty of people – like me – will freely and enthusiastically promote it and you will still build a formidable list.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I also downloaded PPC Webspy. I thought they did mention the 2 additional ads on top of Google in the demo video on the sales page.
One thing I did find is that some of the keywords that Webspy produces for the PPC ads weren’t relevant at all, in regards to the ads.