Greer, I'll take your alternative, but most recent, last point first. ========================== "I don't think I'll be posting any more on this topic. I think those of us who posted our experiences expected more of an objective discussion than we encountered." =========================== Don't leave us now you were just making things interesting! You also said: ============================ "You mention the FTC sites and articles -- good stuff there, and authoritative -- but the question is, why haven't they busted every downline out there?" ============================ Good point Greer. That has been running through my mind ever since Linda mentioned it at the outset of this little discussion. I'm thinking that maybe there just might be a Government task force sitting somewhere in the bowels of the US monitoring all these schemes. This might sound like a healthy dose of conspiracy theorism, however, maybe such a task force could just be in monitoring mode. You know, like a drug bust - watch the players, get them to lead to other players then WHAM! Round 'em all up and prosecute the lot of them. Am I too far-fetched? Heh! Just remember, every computer has a unique identifier, every email can be traced, every transaction is an electronic fingerprint. Hackers and pedophiles get surveilled and traced. Why not participants in illegal money schemes? If you are NOT a participant then you have zilch to worry about. Food for thought? Gary Simpson

Hi Gary -- I know i said i wouldn't say anymore, but you have some good questions there. btw, you know I'm a govt employee , right? Boo!! hehe couldn't resist that, I'm in the military side of the house. I just wnated to give you my imopression of the FTC article on Ponzi, since that is what seems to mostly apply to the autosruf thing we're discussing. I have to qualify my remark by saying that I'm not qualified in any professional capacity to say what I'm going to say -- I'm a layman at risk just like everyone else, but I have kids in college, and if I can find a ligit way... well, you can figure out the rest. My general experience with governemtn writing is that first you weigh it, to get a sense of the overall import. Then you disect it to see how much space is devoted to different topics. My genreal impressionwas that while they can and will do criminal prosecutions where appropriate, they spent a lot more tim e talking about (1) prevention and eduation (2) law suits resulting in repatriation of funds and (3) crimnal prosecution as the cornerstone. So sifting through it that way, my take is that teh scammer, the admin/owner might just see time behind bars if convicted, and the paritifcpant might see court-ordered repatriation of funds. I can't remember the details, but I noticed a forum post taklking about a law suit against an autsurf that happened just about like that. I think it myight be good at this point for me to qualify ALL my postings that I have made on this entire thread by saying that these are just my ideas and opinions as an individual and are not based on any professioanl capacity or certification. This is the way that I perceive all the other posts, as well. Thank you for your response, and remarks Arthur.

Howdy Greer, Actually I didn't know about you being a Government Military employee. Since you mentioned it, I scuffled off to your bio and had a read. I found it interesting. Pretty technical stuff that you have been involved in. Having read it PLEASE don't send any ICBM's to my co-ordinates - ONLY JOKING!! ====================== "my take is that teh scammer, the admin/owner might just see time behind bars if convicted, and the paritifcpant might see court-ordered repatriation of funds. I can't remember the details, but I noticed a forum post taklking about a law suit against an autsurf that happened just about like that." ====================== Good point. So, why would anybody bother with them? Maybe, for those who participate, it's a case of sneak in, try to make a few bucks (if only!), sneak out and hope nobody noticed you. Not my style. Gary Simpson

God questions again, Gary. i can only speak for myself on the "why" question. In my case, I think there's several feeders into that equation of why I'm interested in it. First of all, when I did my first web site, back in the mid to late 90s (FINBIZNEWS at TRIPOD), my first exposure to marketing was the page view technology that was embryonic at that time. My other first exposure was AdlandPro -- they were among the first to allow you to integrate their classified ads into you web site using their content and your own style and graphical adornment. So, I've been using banner and page view technology for so long that it's just a part of my online bag of tricks. A few years ago, i tried reading emails and some other stuff and all I accomplished was making a fool of myself in front of my own family, who still joke about the 20 cents i made doing that stuff for a week (or was it a month??). So that gave me a sour taste, and it for that reason, I had a negative attitude toward paid-to-do-anything online. Recently, a friend here at Adland Pro asked me to join 12 Daily Pro in her downline. I had declined an opp with her before because I felt it wasn't what i wanted, but 12dp seemed a way to support her, and the research I did came back with all positives. So that's how I kind of got into it. Never one to dabble, I immediately wondered if one might invest in 20, 30 or more autosurf programs to mitigate risk, and come out ahead of the overall ball game. So anyway, I'm in or have recently been in about a dozen or so programs, with modest dollars in most of them, a few hundred in the most trusted two or three progams. The paid autosurfs were dealing with some serious possible dollar amounts, so I was naturally curious. With my business education and being a private investor for the last 20 years, I naturally developed an approach for investing in 20-40 programs with modest amounts seeded in each to mitigate risk and maximize profit, then cull out the dead weed ever so often and cycle new programs in. I've always been good with money -- I know what to do with it when it lands in my lap. Conversely, I've been getting frustrated with the whole network marketing approach -- it's incredibly time consuming, takes up ALL your time, and you're using relationships to sell stuff -- not my natural style -- I'm a systems guy. I didn't realize we had an ALP advisor getting into this stuff, but i was just purusing the advisor links and clcked on this one by Linda, noticed the autosurf thread, and here we are talking about it. Why bother? Well a couple of things. First of all, the potential for making money online, of course. Second, what some have said about the utility of the autosurf product isn't really accurate, from my experience. You can build downlines from it, and people do look at the page views, although the click through rate is a factor of about ten times what it is for the manual surf traffic exchanges. For manual surf, you get a sign up or a sale for about every one or two thousand page views, but with autorsurf, it is about 1:10,000 or even more. Since i have psoriasis on my fingers, i prefer the autosurf, as well. All this is why I feel that there is an end product with utility involved with paid autosurf. Hope i answered the question there, Gary.

Hi Greer, We have some good dialogue happening here. I agree entirely with this comment: ============================= "Conversely, I've been getting frustrated with the whole network marketing approach -- it's incredibly time consuming, takes up ALL your time, and you're using relationships to sell stuff -- not my natural style -- I'm a systems guy." ============================= That was quite a defining comment. Maybe if you take it across to the MLM thread you and I can start another discussion there. I've chucked a few hand grenades into the arena there. The "time" component was going to be one of my later posts. ============================= "Hope i answered the question there, Gary." ============================= Yes you did but, er (tongue-in-cheek), the ICBM question is still unanswered. Nice bantering with you Greer. Gary Simpson Baghdad