Absolute Poker to FINALLY admit their site was compromised.

[Brandon]

This is the worst possible stance to take. Everyone knows the true story now with Scott Tom, and the fact that they are blaming this on some "geek" ex employee is insulting.

Terrible job AP, just terrible.

[PPP]

Originally Posted by ResIpsa

Jeremy,

I don't understand why you are giving credibility to the posistion that a poker room can just drop an affiliate that is on MGR if that affiliate no longer promotes the room anymore. That is absolute garbage and violates the terms of just about every affiliate program out there. If absolute were to take such a step, I think they would blow any chance of a reconciliation with the affiliate community. Note this is a fairly unbiased opinion as I don't have any MGR accounts at Absolute, but I think we need to be clear as a community that we hold the poker rooms to a strict standard when it comes to payment. I don't think suggesting that a room can just stop paying an MGR affiliate on a whim is appropriate. Do you want to be associated with a room that you think would do this?

That said, I think there might be some middle ground here. What about leaving the Absolute trackers active for those that are already using them but not make them avaiable for new PAW affiliates? That way webmasters that want to continue promoting absolute can continue to do so but PAW is not actively promoting AP. I would suggest the removal of AP be a temporary ban with the expectation that it will be put back online when confidence in the program has been restored. If you are still worried about retaliation from Absolute at that point, then I don't think that is a program you want PAW to be working with anyway.

Good post, both points.

[Greg]

Good news is I just got off the phone with the industry professionals who are investigating this even more. GamingAssociates.com is a group of highly trained experts whom are seeking the truth and find all the computer geeks out there whom are responsible for hacking into the company and making themselves the CEO and setting up a beta account under a Costa Rican IP address and then colluding under three different user names.

Shucks...those darn computer geeks!

As I said above Gaming Associates is on top of this issue and of course will find out what has happened in greater detail. Below is a picture of the actual GA team of experts investigating this issue. Each one has an MBA in their respective fields of study.

[LadyHoldem]

I love the pic, nothing like i pictured when I emailed

[TheDonk]

It's nobody's business to tell others how to run their business. The topic alone is so stupid. PAW provides a service to affiliates. Affiliates are the customers. This isn't a phucking religion where the people on top tell everyone else what to do. PAW offers it's services to the members, it's up to the members to do what they want with those services.

We aren't franchises of PAW, we work independently.

Independent means that it's our responsibility to make our own decisions.

BTW, I don't have any MGR with Absolute through PAW.

I'm sick of listening to people who are always trying to tell everyone else what to do. Live your life and leave the rest of us alone.

I support Jeremy's decision to leave this in our hands.

TheDonk

[themike537]

Agreed. It's not someone else's decision to tell others who to promote and who not to promote.

I also support leaving AP on the network.

[stillshadow]

Personally, I don't really care about Absolute Poker in the short term or what it means to the PAW network. Of course, I do feel badly for those making their living with AP as their main site. I've never made too much money with them and I wouldn't be terribly upset if they simply imploded after this idiocy. It would be a slight hit to me, but nothing that I haven't gotten used to in the past year.

What I do care about is public perception. I don't keep up with the politics at those big poker forums and haven't followed this story closely. I was hoping that it was another conspiracy theory that would get disproved swiftly. Now that we're seeing AP actually admit to this nonsense, how can this possibly not affect our industry negatively?

Without trust from new players, how can we possibly thrive as affiliates? I'm pissed at AP for letting this happen and I'm pissed at their lack of professionalism in handling the fallout.

If this gets much attention, I don't see how it can't affect all of our bottom lines. New and curious players actually have a reason to distrust the game because of some cheating scandal they heard about from a friend of a friend. I would (hopefully) assume this was an isolated incident, but will the general public be perceptive enough to realize that?

I also can't see how this can bode well for government legislation. Call me a pessimist, but can you see John Q. Congressman coming up for reelection signing onto a bill when the whole industry is now coming into question? In my opinion, there wouldn't be a greater call of action to regulate the games but rather a move to distance us from them.

Also, I agree with Randy and Jeremy's position regarding leaving AP on the PAW network. No individual affiliate should try to impose his moral will on others. We appreciate you trying to inform us of the facts, but we run our own businesses. No one should be forced to stop their promotions and stop earning money on referred players.

I apologize for the rant, but this whole situation just has me riled up. AP can and should go down for letting this flaw remain in their software and then handling it so poorly once it was discovered. That line about the "geek" in the MSNBC article was absolutely appalling. Do they actually have a PR department? However, this whole situation bothers me a heck of a lot less than what effect it could have on the overall attitude of legislators and curious new players.

Take a lesson from your own condescending ad campaign: "Don't be a donkey, get your $#@!&*% act together AP".

[PPP]

Some strange posts in this thread. PAW is a network. having a rogue reflects on everyone in the network, from any particpating affiliates to other cardrooms. Not only is it valid for particpants in their network to offer their opinions on who should be included and who should not, it is plain stupid not to.

Absolute Poker is an open issue, but if PAW included the two prior rogue carddrooms, Propoker or Pokerspot, few sane cardrooms would choose to join the network, and many affiliates would choose not to be associated with a network that partners with rogues. Then of course players would, and should, hold it against anybody who knowingly directs them to rogues.

This is not a business for simpleton thinking. This AP issue could have all sorts of positive and/or negative repurcussions for the industry. After AP issues a final statement regarding this issue, PAW should decide whether to change AP's status in the network, and all members of the network should freely offer their opinions on what that should be.

For example, if AP were at this point to issue a statement saying "no cheating occured", that would be idiotic and disgrace them and disgrace anybody doing business with them, so of course it would be a good idea for PAW members to say "get rid of the idiots".

[Jeremy]

Clearly I am in a really......really tough position. I think both sides of the argument are valid.

Personally I will not be pushing AP on any of my sites. But for me to make that decision for the 100+ trackers that are on this network is a big decision.

I agree Resp that it is doubtful that AP would actually just shut the PAW account down. If anything we will remove them and honor existing trackers.

But even then, I feel as if I am making a morale decision for the 1000+ that are members of the network.

Some affiliates out there are trying to sell how AP only has the fish left.....

Either way, I am going to piss somebody off, it sucks.

[Darko]

There is no way PAW should takeaway those 100+ trackers..... Its up to the affiliates if they want to promote or not, not PAW's.

I fully agree with Jeremy on this one and i think the only fair solution to taking AP off would be to remove them from being advertised and stop any new trackers from being made, but also honour ALL exisiting trackers and let each affiliate decide what to do with them.