500,000+ Webmasters Boycott 314 Major Online Merchants And Ad Networks For Deceptive, Fraudulent, Illegal And Unfair Business Practices.

A worldwide boycott of over 314 major online merchants has begun in protest to the use of deceptive, fraudulent and unfair business practices related to scumware and affiliate programs offered by ad networks and online merchants

Las Vegas, Nevada. Two major online traffic generators, NetBiz Corporation and Abestweb announce a major world wide boycott of 314 major online merchants for fraudulent business practices related to the tracking of sales and the payments made for the sales to the merchant's respective affiliates.

Over 500,000 affiliate oriented webmasters have come together to protest the ongoing deceptive, fraudulent, illegal and unfair practices of merchants and ad networks designed to steal commissions from the very people who help make their online businesses viable, their affiliates.

A Merchant Boycott website has been created to inform people of the specific complaints of webmasters and a list of all the merchants and ad networks to be boycotted. The Merchant Boycott
web address is http://www.merchantboycott.com

The list of merchants reads like the who's who of online e-commerce: Amazon, Ebay, Linkshare, BeFree, Commission Junction, Engage and over 300 more major online merchants.

One of the principle complaints is against what is called "scumware." "Scumware" is software that automatically puts links, and/or pops up windows on websites without the webmasters's knowledge or permission. The unwanted links contain affiliate codes which divert any potential customer to the affiliate code of those who illegally added the code before customers have a chance to complete any transaction. As a consequence, legitmate affiliate webmasters are cheated out of any commissions from sales generated from their traffic.

This complaint is only one of more than a half dozen ways the webmaster affiliates of the merchants and ad networks have been and are continually be cheated.

Fred Conquest, CEO of NetBiz Corporation states that: "We have complained to merchants and ad networks about all these injustices for the last seven months and all we get is ignored. Recently NetBiz and thousands of other affiliate oriented webmasters have seen their sales and respective commissions drop like bricks. When we found out that huge numbers of people sent to merchants websites were diverted to a place called When-U.com, a form of 'scumware' we decided to take action. The result is MerchantBoycott.com"

Haiko de Poel, Jr, CEO of Abestweb states that: "We have contacted over 2 million webmasters and have lined up about 25% so far to boycott the merchants on our list. Plus, this merchant boycott is an ongoing effort on our part. We will continue to go after any and all the merchants who engage in any dirty practices designed to take commissions out of the pockets legitimate affiliates."

In addition to the organized boycott, a massive class action lawsuit is contemplated and will seek
legal redress, punitative damages and we are asking the U.S. Justice department to look into these abuses which in our opinion constitute an ongoing criminal conspiracy.

Mr. Conquest can be contacted at: frederick.c@usa.net. Mr. de Poel, Jr. at haiko@abestweb.com

The internet can be a profitable sales channel for businesses but not when they knowingly bite the hand that feeds them simply because they think they can get away with it.(End)