regann: (Default)
regann ([personal profile] regann) wrote in [personal profile] owlmoose 2007-05-21 05:05 am (UTC)

Well, for one thing, as soon as a company owns it they become subject to all sorts of for-profit rules. In the case of aff.net, they now are now subject to the same laws that govern US pornography (they even use a RTA Label on their site, which is an adult industry self-labelling link which means "restricted to adults.") and other rules pertaining to adult-related material.

Now, they might not say that they're a corp. but they are or else they wouldn't need to bother with all the legal speak and age bumpers and stuff they have. I know, I worked in porn for a year.

The worse part of it all -- the reason I call it screwed up -- is by adding all this, they've made people legally bound to their word. When you go through the age bumper and say you're an adult, that's a legal contract - which probably means that they're using tracking software that can, in the vernacular, get your ass jacked. So if someone legal comes breathing down your neck, they can and will turn over YOUR information to save themselves. I don't like this at all. I have a friend who works for the government who refuses to even go through the age bumper because of what you're actually agreeing to when you click through.

Now, granted, alot of this is adult-related legal stuff but as soon as someone starts to make money from it, it becomes a thousand times for complicated. And I'm pretty sure these guys came to the idea because someone in their offices said "OMG FANFIC IS A BIG THING" and someone else said "FANFIC WHUT?" and they realized how big a chunk it was on the 'net and wanted to make money off of it. Again, I know because this is exactly why my company tried to buy aff.net, even though no one other than a few of us had ever heard of it before; they simply saw the traffic numbers for aff.net and ff.net and saw dollar signs.

/end rant

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