Black Hat vs Fraud: What's the Difference?

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ClownBaby said:
people like to throw words around. blackhat marketting is NOT fraud in any way.
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BH is to fraud as downloading music is to stealing. It is all in the grey area in our minds but a judge might not agree. Take mailing for example if you get away with it it's BH if you get caught and charged under the can spam law then it's a crime.
 
BH = When in doubt, do. Fraud = When in doubt, don't.

I was just trying to come up with something witty so it's not my final answer. Anyway, I'm still in the early stages of building up my sites so this is not yet an issue for me.

After this preliminaries, this is my final answer.

Fraud as a legal term means causing damage to another. And damage is an essential element and something that must be proven. Fraud is also a crime, but before you start feeling guilty of having committed fraud, there must be a specific provision of law against the "fraudulent" act you're committing. Therefore, if it is not punished under the law, there is no crime ergo there is no fraud.

I think the issue here is not about fraud per se. It seems to me that the OP is confusing/mixing the concepts of "illegal" and "immoral". Fraud is illegal. However, some generally deviant behavior may be immoral (for some and not others).

@overl00rd: For most who answered your post, it seems they see the issue as one of morality. And each one of us is moral in our own sight.
 
Yeah yeah blackhatting is bad and we cheat people. OK seriously: does anyone here know anyone who has been locked up for CL marketing or other deceptive affiliate marketing tactics? I don't. I think people get arrested for blackhatting as much as they get arrested for file sharing.
 
Buy a Virgin Mobile phone then activate it on line.

They walk you through a legnty series of attempts to obtain an open charge to register a phone.
Even require compulsory monthly email receipts to obtain a number.

Virgin Mobile is 110% Black Hat IF the definition is deceit.

And Congress is BlackHat as is the WH.

And every beer commercial.
 
Well well, I guess we can't come up with a firm definition about what method is black hat or what method is pure fraud.

I think I can come up with a conclusion that the lines are blurry when it comes to BH vs fraud. So nobody has the right to scream 'you fuggin' fraudster' in a BHW thread whenever some guy spits out his BH method.

...or if anyone can come up with an example of what is a popular black hat method that does NOT involve anything with fraud, and can give a damn good reason why it's not a fraud... feel free to throw in the ball.
 
Forgive me, Black Hatters, but I must raise a philosophical point here. {Black Hat} and {Fraud} are exactly the same thing. Indeed, they are two examples of the same thing, and that thing is defined as a word, ambiguous by definition. Is Black Hat fraud? I have no idea, define fraud and you'll answer your own hypothetical question.

I realize that this obviously is not the point of this discussion. My best guess is that the question is whether Black Hat methods described on these forums are deceptive, immoral and harmful. Maybe so. Like it or not, we are talking about capitalism here. As such, well, all is fair, isn't it? Assuming you don't get caught, of course.

I am certainly not fit to pass judgment on anyone. So, let's all just agree to disagree when it comes to the ethics of our shared interests as Internet Marketers, such as they may be.
 
the assfucks who run the state of california shut down admissions for all of the colleges in the state because of their philandering of taxpayer money.. that is fraud, I'm 24 years old, can't even go to college to finish my degree ( already have 90 units completed lower division), so what if I bend the rules a little to get things going for me, when people are put in shitty situations like more and more people are nowadays you gotta do what you gotta do... when you make it big and you're still pulling the same shit then that is fraud... the shit that the fucking politicians and corporate ceo's and wall street execs pull... that is FRAUD, I don't give a shit and am sick of people debating petty shit like this, if you're not stealing money from someone (other than some spammy full of shit internet ad program) it isn't fraud
 
Great post White-Collar. You speak the truth.



Unlike most the people in denial here, there is a difference between black hat marketing and fraud.

BHW 2 years ago as I remembered as more about black hat traffic generation, such as spamming and SEO. The community was more into spamming major sites and SEO.

Then ever since CPA started to become popular, in my opinion the community started to turn sour. People found tricking people, networks and merchants was lucrative as long as you could get away with it. And this trend is still continuing.

Now back on topic.

The definition of fraud is "intentional deception resulting in injury to another person". To make it simpler, it means lieing to someone which causing damage to the person.

So when you're tricking horny people into "age verification" when you're actually signing them up to a rebill offer, you are committing fraud. Or if you tell someone to fill out a offer for a job application, you are committing fraud. When a merchant sells a acai rebill that cannot be canceled they are committing fraud. Anything that you lie about intentionally and cause harm financially is fraud. Period. This definition has nothing to do with ethics and that is what fraud means. It's that simple and if you want to deny that, then you are wrong.

But the thing is, you probably won't get caught. IM is a small industry that isn't really regulated or monitored. But hopefully the new FTC rules will change that. Fraud is only harming the industry in the long run. You might be able to bank in the short run but the long term is always more profitable.

Black hat marketing doesn't really have a meaning (and some even consider black hat SEO doesn't exist). But to the general marketer it means breaking the rules to generate traffic. It's about taking advantage of the system.

It would be awesome to see the old BHW back. It's still great but the fraud coming in is like a ton of shit being piled on gold. But it's worth digging in the crap for the gold.

Also I would like to say that I'm very happy to see that people realize the crap that is going on here. I use to think I was the only one who thought this way. It really disturbed me for a while. I have found the awesomeness of BHW again.
 
In what country and since when does 16-year old porn qualify as CP?
 
IcedCube said:
In what country and since when does 16-year old porn qualify as CP?
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under 18 is CP in the United States, Canada and most of Latin America
and I don't know, but I would guess that in Europe also
 
neo said:
In blackhat SEO, you don't follow the rules set by google and think outside the box to manipulate the SERPS. It is not fraud.
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Exactly. Can't tell you how many people (online and off) who honestly believe that the marketing rules set by Google are actually law. Most of BH is just creative marketing.

Wanna get laid? Why stick around CL when you can have a free signup at an actual dating site? Would you be more enticed if asked by a woman (or man) with a great body? In this scenario you would be lying for your own gain, but the lead would (IMO) benefit more by being on a dating site.

I'm also guessing this thread is about the legal definition of fraud. If we broke the law every time we simply lied, we'd all be up the river :p
 
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yao1994 said:
The definition of fraud is "intentional deception resulting in injury to another person". To make it simpler, it means lieing to someone which causing damage to the person.

So when you're tricking horny people into "age verification" when you're actually signing them up to a rebill offer, you are committing fraud. Or if you tell someone to fill out a offer for a job application, you are committing fraud. When a merchant sells a acai rebill that cannot be canceled they are committing fraud. Anything that you lie about intentionally and cause harm financially is fraud. Period. This definition has nothing to do with ethics and that is what fraud means. It's that simple and if you want to deny that, then you are wrong.
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I think that the definition of BH doesn't have anything to do with ethics, but you have to supply your own ethics. I'm happy that some people are disgusted at the same things as me. :D Some of the "tactics" that some people use are really nothing more than stealing.

Slicing an offer to cut out cost and rebill info? Stealing. Plus, you'll get booted out of the network. People treat "fraud" as some great intangible idea, but "stealing" is pretty fucking tangible, especially when something of yours gets stolen.

You can put up an ad on CL about a "Job" (Fraud), or you can post an ad about a job board with an offer or two within it (BH). OR, you can post an info request ad for college search leads and scholarship leads (BH). Of these, only one is illegal and unethical and two are BH.:prof01:
 
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BH is indeed about not following or laying down before other people's (and other corporate giants') artificial rules about what is 'white hat' or respectable manipulation of the SERPs, not about committing crimes. It's the difference between a magician who uses creative misdirection tricks to produce illusions, and a con man who blandly sneaks off with the keys to get into somebody else's bank account or strong box.

The standard rules of SEO are less than 15 years old, they did not come down from Mount Sinai. Who's to say BHers are not simply pioneering new ways to do SEO that will be more broadly accepted later?
 
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SSL9000J said:
Forgive me, Black Hatters, but I must raise a philosophical point here. {Black Hat} and {Fraud} are exactly the same thing.
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The people who say it's not fraud are right, and so are those who say it is, if you're objective about it you'll see it's small fraud just like all businesses use.
When people start going to jail i'll care.

- you're under arrest for pretending to be a female.
- but officer, twas thy third personality (Mother Teresa) which lead he to thine page to use his credit card. Anymore questions sir? For i am on thy fourth personality now which is Shakespeare, let it be known that my 5th has no regard for the law - I am robin hood.
 
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well ... fraud's definition out of the dictionary definition involve let's say an correlation with penal law's ... BH activities and techniques aren't covered by law's restrictions .... Idea it's easy to understand peoples before spoke about using an vcc for example to fill an cpa offert ... dude's WOKE UP ... it's not a fkin fraud ! the vcc IF is legal bought from any bank or provider that shiet isn't illegal ! .... if my fkin bank allow me to create virtually how manny virtual card number's I wanna I can use them like I wish and you and none don't need to care about it ... will be a fraud when I`ll stole your card and will fill same cpa offert ;) then yes that's a fraud ... but ... the limits are highly disputable ...

Things what you have to understand it's difference between what it's allowed by law's and what it's forbidden IT's make the difference between fraud and non-fraud activities . ALL other will be maybe worst case immoral activities ... what the advertiser will lose money because an lead will be filled with a vcc ? so what who the heck care about those multimillion bastards if they are losing money :) I don't give a damn . ;)

Spam for example it's illegal ! if you don't know the definition on spam go to google and check about CANSPAM act ... read and try to understand it . ALL other type of electronic communications witch aren't covered by canspam act aren't spam so aren't illegal and STILL worldwide are sent daily millions of emails '' unwanted '' or other electronic forms of commercial communications .

So ... where it's the difference between illegal and illegal stuffs ? where it's the cross line between BH and fraud ? ... one single answer it's here '' right '' . Where the penal law's will stop to cover different activities . And NO using vcc's AREN'T ILLEGAL ;) are perfectly legal exactly like condoms for example .
 
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