Black Hat vs Fraud: What's the Difference?

overl00rd

overl00rd

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Sometimes I keep reading these posts that screamed 'this is fraud!' when some new money-making method come up. While the guy who posted that is doing a black hat thingy such as posting fake job leads in CL to drive traffic to his pay-per-lead offers.

There was a quite popular thread about posting fake job leads and nobody shouted 'fraud!' on it (it is a fraud, go ask Merriam-Webster), while there's this one thread about covering your adsense ad with a video image and it's considered black hat.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy BHW forum so very much. I mean, this forum actually prints money to members who know what they're doing ;). This is the best money making forum in my 2 years journey of IM so far.

Yes I agree, that BH is one of the kick-ass way to make truckload of money in a short term and you should invest or *cough* launder *cough* your money into WH stuff to make it long term....

Morals aside, this question still haunts me...

Is there a fine line between BH vs fraud?

...or, what makes a method 'black hat' or what can be stamped as 'fraud'?

(Daamn, I sound like Carrie Bradshaw :D)

Peace, y'all.
 
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It's the difference between 18 year old barely legal, dress-up, unethical porn and 16 year old CP
 
pewep said:
It's the difference between 18 year old barely legal, dress-up, unethical porn and 16 year old CP
Click to expand...

LOL! Well said.

Blackhat is tricking the person without hurting him for our benefit. The job method gives hope to the job seekers and we make money. But it doesn't promise the job seekers anything. On other hand if you promise the job and ask him to pay $50 registration fees and run away with it, it is fraud.

BlackHatWorld was originally meant for SEO. See the tag line of BHW. It still says Black Hat SEO forum. 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.
 
White-Collar said:
Look up fraud at dictionary.com:
Fraud:
?noun
1. deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.
2. a particular instance of such deceit or trickery: mail fraud; election frauds.
3. any deception, trickery, or humbug: That diet book is a fraud and a waste of time.
4. a person who makes deceitful pretenses; sham; poseur.

Blackhat SEO generally does not involve fraud, but blackhat affiliate marketing almost always involves fraud. For example, faking the referrer is a form of fraud. Most of the "blackhat" methods on this forum involve fraud.

The problem is a lot of the people on here don't understand the difference. I have seen people promote straight out criminally fraudulent methods on here, while some are just tortuously fraudulent, and others are fraudulent in that they involve a breach of contract with the networks and deceptively cover it up. People will argue that these blackhat methods are not fraud, which is bullshit. Look at the definition.

For example, the guy above me posted:

"Blackhat: "tricking" a user to enter their CC
Fraud: using a VCC to fill out your own leads"

Wrong. Those are both fraud. And they both involve screwing over others. I also notice the tendency of people here to justify their fraudulent activities by pointing to something they consider worse and which they are not doing. Or they say, that the networks or advertisers screw over other people, so it's okay for affiliates to screw over networks or advertisers.

Also, it's amazing that anytime someone on this forum ever mentions ethics or moral standards, they get flamed and chastised. There is a culture here where people cannot voice moral objections to anyone's methods or actions because it is taboo. No one wants to face the fact that a lot of the stuff people do on here is just extremely fucked up. The attitude here is that whatever someone does is permissible so long as it makes them money.

A lot of the stuff I see on this forum bothers my conscience. There's some valuable and honest information on here, which is superior to the information available on other forums. There are also probably some people of good character in here, but I think it's fair to argue that BHW is overwhelmingly a proverbial "den of robbers". I mean look how many pages of threads are in "The Shitlist".
Click to expand...

Very well said, I was going to post something similar but a lot of people know the CL "marketers" try to justify their actions by things they don't even understand fully.
 
Just don't do anything exceedingly annoying....or cover your tracks well ;)
 
Geetfaux said:
...a lot of people know the CL "marketers" try to justify their actions by things they don't even understand fully.
Click to expand...

That pretty much added my point of this whole thread. CL marketers who shouted 'fraud!' when they found out someone filling out their own PPL offers.

Guys c'mon, this is a BH forum fuhgudssake... No need to point fingers to someone as fraudster cuz we're all making a sh!tload of munny in here thanks to BHW, and cuz...

White-Collar said:
BHW is overwhelmingly a proverbial "den of robbers"
Click to expand...

Like it or not, we're on the same boat here :D
 
Blackhat: "tricking" a user to enter their CC
Fraud: using a VCC to fill out your own leads
Click to expand...

The first can also be fraud depending on what you represent to the user.
 
Make no mistake about it

we're all grifters


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASyVNfEjs-g

"The Grifter's got an irresistable urge to be the guy that's wise."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi63rXnuWbw

"You can manipulate consumers into wanting, and therefore buying your products. It - it's a game. Somebody asked me Lucy, 'is that ethical? You're essentially manipulating these children.' Well - is it ethical? Yeah, I don't know. But our role at Initiative is to move products. And if we know that you move products with a certain creative execution placed in a certain type of media vehicle, then we've done our job."
http://www.depression2.tv/d2/node/98
 
White-Collar, I agree with every damned word you wrote.

Part of the problem with discussing where the line gets crossed from blackhat to fraud is the fact that blackhat doesn't really have a definition so everyone forms their own definition of it.

For myself, I look at blackhat as manipulating things to take advantage of how a given system is set up, giving yourself an unfair advantage. This would be doing something like setting up a blogfarm to give yourself extra linkjuice in the serps.

I personally don't include anything that involves tricking anybody. Whatever you're promoting, getting someone to sign up for it by misrepresenting what they'll be getting is fraud. You've defrauded the customer by making him or her pay (even if the payment is only time) for something when they're expecting something else. You've defrauded the CPA network by tricking them into paying you for useless leads (it's like making an agreement to sell you bags of gold, but instead I sell you bags of shit).

Now, depending on the individual's definition, this fraud could still be blackhat but they should be smart enough and honest enough (at least with themselves) to understand and admit they are committing fraud.

One of the most important things I think the OP posted was the need to recycle some of your profit into whitehat ventures to build a long-term income. The advantage of blackhat is that you can get a quicker return and be banking money much quicker than most whitehat methods. That said, the drawback of blackhat is that income dries up as you stop posting ads, ewhoring, or whatever it is you're doing.

In other words, if you want long-term blackhat income, you're going to be putting in long-term effort to keep the income going.

Anyway, I'm surprised and happy to see that this thread didn't inspire 15 dozen posts of people saying, "This is blackhat world!! If you're that much of a do-gooder pussy, leave. Good luck flipping burgers!!".

I'm hoping that means that a big portion of our community here is learning that someone discussing this isn't passing judgement and condemning you for how you choose to make income, but rather is just batting around ideas...
 
video #2 is the tits....
subliminal advertising subliminal advertising subliminal advertising DRINK COKE subliminal advertising subliminal advertising
 
Some of you amuse me. "tricking" users = conning, lying, fraud, it's all the same. I guess if you consider using VCC to fill in your own referrals fraud but causing someone who is not interested in what your selling to enter theirs is ok then you have a twisted view on reality.

Cheating is cheating. I do it and I don't try to kid myself that it is anything more or less than what it is. I guess some folks can't be honest with themselves so whatever you have to call it to make yourself feel better, go ahead!
 
Fraud is a crime. blackhat tactics are not, it just bends the rules to a hair from breaking
 
mrsix said:
Fraud is a crime. blackhat tactics are not, it just bends the rules to a hair from breaking
Click to expand...

So if you knowingly and deliberately violate the TOS of a CPA your not defrauding the CPA?
 
It's only Fraud if you are sitting on a metal bed using a toilette with no seat and staring at bars while reading this thread. Life is all about finding new and creative ways to take money out of other peoples pockets. Look at a $300 pair of shoes made by a 12 yr old kid that's being paid 25 cents a day to make them...That's fraud
 
people like to throw words around. blackhat marketting is NOT fraud in any way.
 
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