MadPPC

This story broke yesterday on WF by Jon:

BREAKING NEWS!

This is not a rumor. This is 100% confirmed.

Today there were as many as 4-5 subpeonas served to AFFILIATES who promoted Acai Berry offers and are based in the state of Illinois.

UPDATED 06/04/09: All of the affiliates that were served with subpeonas are Illinois based, and were allegedly using Oprah in their ads, on Facebook only. All were shown information that could have only been attained via a subpeona of Facebook. The Illinois attorney general subpeona has requests for financial information, campaign information, tracking information, networks and advertisers tied to the campaigns, etc. So they are obviously following the typical AG investigating protocol. Still strange enough to see them going after affiliates first and then working their way up, as its usually the opposite. But this is shaping up to become a big mess as I’ve been told by other state AG’s that they are very interested in following this investigation and very likely will begin their own or a possible joint investigation (lets hope it doesn’t get to that). The affiliates involved have asked to remain anonymous, so please keep people’s names to yourselves if you can, and respect their privacy wishes for a change. Bottom line, this is being fueled by Oprah/her lawyers, Illinois AG, Facebook + FTC partnership.

There have been rumors from the Harpo camp close to the Facebook/Acai advertiser subpeonas that Myspace/Newscorp was to be subpeonad for advertiser account information too, but this has not been confirmed or commented on by anyone from Newscorp or the Illinois AG as of yet.

For privacy reasons I will not name any of the affiliates who were subpeonad today, but this came as a pretty big shock as the Illinois Attorney General had some pretty in-depth knowledge of the people involved, more so than usual.

UPDATED 06/04/09: I still strongly believe there is an industry insider ratting, but its my opinion and I’ll just keep it to myself now as I’m not out to destroy anyone’s reputation without 100% definitive proof. Lets see how it plays out unfortunately.

This is the first time that a state attorney general has gone after ONLY the largest affiliates, one by one, as if they were reading it off of a numbered hit list.

Before you even ask, yes, most of the guys on the list are members here. If they want to come out and speak about it, that’s up to them, so please don’t turn this into a rumor mill or witch hunt. I’ve got most of their names confirmed and confirmation from an anonymous source with the Illinois Attorney Generals office that this is in fact quite real.

The only good side of it is that they don’t seem to be seeking out any jail time, just civil action. I can absolutely assure you that this is not going to be the last time we see any of this happen, as there is an unconfirmed suit by another state AG finishing up and getting ready to go after a handful of advertisers and networks, but no affiliates that I know of.

UPDATED 06/04/09: Boutique affiliate/agency Bloosky was hit with a suit from the AG in Utah on Tuesday over their Google bizopp (whatever the name is, they all sound the same), so not Acai related, but still interesting, will make a seperate thread about this later. It doesn’t look like anything very serious either and will most likely be settled out of court quickly. I know for a fact that there is no mention of affiliates in this at all, it seems to be more about customer complaints who couldn’t figure out how to cancel/refund (typical, they know how to file with the AG but can’t figure out how to call for a refund).