Saturday, August 11, 2007
How to Make Money From Your Website
Now that you've got a website, how do you make money from it? There are at least two ways in which sites can make money:
1. Advertising Revenue
2. Selling Goods and Services
I shall deal with the second case, "Selling goods and services", in another article. In this article, I will address the issue of how your site can actually make money from advertising.
Making Money From Advertising
If you look at many websites, you will probably notice that there are banner advertisements displayed on most pages. If you are a newcomer to the scene, you might think that you must either be a company or that your site must be famous before you can get advertisers, just as it is the case in hardcopy publications.
In reality, anyone with a website can get advertisers. While it is true that if your site is well-known, you may get companies contacting you to offer to advertise on your site, you can get advertising revenue even if you are just starting out and your site is relatively unknown.
The way to do this is to join as an "affiliate" of various sites, either directly, or through an affiliate network. An affiliate network is simply an intermediary where you can select from a variety of advertisers.
Payment Schemes
Before joining any program, you should probably be aware of the different payment schemes available.
1.
Pay Per Impression
Here, you are paid according to the number of times the advertiser's banner is displayed on your site. The amount you earn is typically calculated based on the number of thousand impressions of the banner (impressions = number of times the banner is displayed), often abbreviated CPM (cost per thousand, with the M being the Latin numeral for thousand). That is, $5 CPM means that you get paid $5 for 1,000 displays of the banner. In general, the amount paid is usually small, but it is easy to earn since everytime a visitor loads the page, you earn. This is known as a "high conversion rate". Needless to say, this method will allow you to automatically earn more if your site attracts a lot of visitors.
2.
Pay Per Click
When you are paid per click, you are only paid when visitors click the advertiser's banner on your site. The amount paid is usually higher than the pay per impression scheme. Whether you get a high conversion rate here depends on the banner (whether it attracts people to click it), although in general, it has a higher conversion rate than the pay per sale method. A high traffic site will probably enjoy a higher click rate than a lower traffic site, although you will probably get better results if your banners are carefully selected to suit the target audience of your site.
3.
Pay Per Sale or Lead
While you will probably get the highest payment rates with this method, it has the lowest conversion rate of the three schemes. You will only earn if your visitors click through the banner and either purchase an item from the advertiser or take some other prescribed action (eg, sign up for a service). Like the Pay Per Click method, you get much better results if you carefully select your advertisers to suit the target audience of your site.
In general, to avoid wasting resources in issuing cheques for very small amounts, advertisers will usually accrue the amount owing to you until it reaches a certain level (such as $25) before they pay you.
Where to Find Affiliate Programs
To join an affiliate network or program, simply go to the site and complete their online application form. Some programs will give you instant approval while others require a human to check out your application before it is approved. Once it is approved, you'll be given some HTML code which you can cut and paste into your web page. Note that some affiliate networks and programs will not accept you unless you have a domain name.
How To Choose An Affiliate Program
How should you choose an affiliate program? My suggestion is not to choose a program according to the payment scheme, but rather according to the kind of people who are likely to visit your website. For example, if you are targeting parents on your site, links to affiliates with educational software, books and the like may generate more revenue than banners that link to web hosting companies. The most important rule of choosing an affiliate program is to know your target audience.
Another point to consider is whether you really want to join every single affiliate program that comes your way. Some studies suggest that sites that make the most money from affiliate programs are affiliates of only a small handful of programs. Furthermore, concentrating your advertisements from one network may allow you to be paid faster. If you advertise for hundreds of different affiliate networks on your site, you may wind up earning only (say) a few dollars per month from each network. If your advertiser's minimum payment amount is higher than what you can earn each month, it may take you a long time before you accrue enough to be paid.
On the other hand, that formula does not necessarily hold true for every site (or every page on your site, for that matter). For example, if your site has a particular theme, and an affiliate network only supports one or two suitable advertisers, you might want to sign up for a few affiliate networks so as to get a greater number of relevant advertisers. After all, advertisements that are relevant to your audience are more likely to be taken up than general advertisements. (What's the point of putting banners from only one affiliate if nobody is going to click them?)
Friday, August 3, 2007
Ways to make money on the Internet.
I'm talking small, but real money to start with - not the ' $1000+ in a week ' scams.
First, you need some 'tools'.
An 'always online' connection to the Internet. more...
A dedicated credit card for the Internet. more...
Open FREE Internet banking accounts to receive payment. more...
Dedicated email addresses. more...
Second, you need some income.
High yield investment programs (HYIP) return high yields on your investment but are also high risk and of limited duration. Get in early with a sum you can afford to loose and earn 20% daily for a few days or 2% daily for a few weeks/months. Most use e-gold as a 'currency' so you will need to open a free account here... To help in deciding which programs to invest in and when to pull out I have kept the statistics of several current sites and also of sites that have closed. This is a very volatile market but can be very profitable and exciting.
Trickle income, like these sites below, build up a bank balance and give you confidence
MyLot is a great program for people who like to chat and earn a few dollars a day at the same time! The range of subjects is enormous and from all over the world. Upload pictures from your computer, list your passions and other features. But beware - this program can become infectious!! Payment is by PayPal so you will need to get a free PayPal account . If you can't get PayPal in your country then they will pay by E-gold.
BlueBayptr is a great PTS ( paid to search ), PTC ( paid to click ) PTJ (paid to join or sign up) and PTR ( paid to read ) program and, unlike some, has a low payout threshold of $2. This amount can be quickly reached by joining other programs from the Paid to Signup section, searching on links in your Inbox and clicking on banners in the Paid to Click area. I earn about $7 a month on my own searches. Payment is by PayPal so you will need to get a free PayPal account. If you don't do proper searches (see below) then you will not be sent many paid links.
Here is a tutorial on how to make a valid search . It will take longer than the 40 seconds shown to finish loading three pages but if the advertiser doesn't get paid, you wont get the links in the future.
Rpoints is aimed at UK/Euro surfers comparing prices of goods.
An example of how Rpoints worked to save me 36% off my UK car insurance is here...
Just to show that you can save money and make money using Rpoints.
You can buy almost anything at the best retail price and then get an added discount with Rpoints. Go to the page called 'recurring' where comparing prices with Kelkoo and others earns about 2p to 6p a click up to a max of about £1 a day. Ultra-cautious about awarding points, Rpoints take a week or more to check, then credit, your points and then a month or more to validate them before you can cash in. A good forum explains all this. But, once the ball is rolling and you're clicking every day, the cash rolls into PayPal at £5 minimum a time and in £sterling too so you can have dollar and sterling PayPal accounts to save on exchange rates.
Higher Payouts.
Normally I avoid very high payout programs where it sometimes takes a year to reach the minimum by which time the site may have vanished!
You WILL get paid with these programs; about $35 to $50 a month for just these programs and there are dozens more to choose from. Join up, add to your favourites or put an icon on your desktop by dragging on a links page for each program and visit the sites at intervals through the day and earn a bit each time. It soon adds up.
I can get you referrals. Contact me for details on how its done.
TIPS -
1. Right click on the log-in page for each program and save a shortcut link to your desktop, or, Add to your Favourites in a new folder, named Daily, for instance. Much easier to remember your daily earning sites by double clicking on the icons or links.
2. Write the address and log-in details for each site in the back of your diary. It is easy to forget your user name and password and you can continue to earn money on another pc when away from home.
3. Get into the habit of regular visits. Most sites will cancel your account if you don't make use of it and any money earned will be lost.
4. Contact me if you need help or advice.
Third, make a web site of your own and get advertisers on it.
The final group of earning programs can be placed on your own web site.
First you need a website with content interesting enough to attract visitors.
Think of a subject that you know a lot about - you, your family, your job, your hobby - whatever it is, focus on it and provide detailed information; facts, figures. Try to make your web site the definitive source of information on your chosen subject.
With a web site designed you need a domain name and a hosting service. It is like an address to the house where your web site lives. I use Easily to buy my domain names and Cirtex to host them, both companies give excellent service and support.
Promote your website using the points earned from working the PTS, PTR and PTC you joined above in section two.
Once you have a web site with solid content you have a 'product' to sell. Many of the top programs will not accept you as an affiliate unless you have a web site of substance.
The star payer is Google AdSense. They pay for clicks and pay very well and cleverly match their ads to the content of your page. They are choosey about the sites that can join and demand a reasonable standard of content. Sign up for AdSense. here. If you have a busy website you will earn good money with AdSense.
A good affiliate scheme is TradeDoubler . where you can join up for free to any of dozens of schemes under one 'roof' . All affiliate schemes have a minimum payout limit of around $50 so grouping schemes together as with TradeDoubler . [aimed at European web sites] and Commission Junction [aimed at North America but covering the world] means that you can get a cheque earlier.
Lots of companies would love you to join them as an affiliate and will pay you a commission when your visitors buy some of their products. It makes sense to join up with companies compatible with your site. Amazon sell a lot more than just books now and pay 5% to 7.5% commission by targeting specific books with a link from your site.
Bravenet has a lot of free goodies to add to your web site to attract more visitors and can help in setting up and hosting a web site. They also offer 50mb of free space on their servers to store your password protected back-up files and sensitive data.
Slide or Glide In ads are the latest medium and build income fast from your web site. I use GlideNetwork. The small ad windows load onto your page for 15 seconds and then automatically disappear. Rates vary but pay for CPC and CPM with a payout limit of >$5.00 to Paypal. Not affected by popup killers as yet so impressions are good.
Pop-up windows are better selling tools than banners and PopupTraffic.com will pay you $3 to $4/1000 impressions depending on whether the popup is in front, behind or on exit or all three for $11/1000, the choice is yours. This is the best you will get on the net and they pay monthly without fail. Popup killer browsers will reduce your income but they have introduced a new 'layer' glide in ad when meeting a popup blocker that pays $3 cpm. A busy site will still earn more than the $25 minimum for a cheque to be sent each month.
Banner advertisements, love 'em or hate 'em, are part of the Net. Place these standard sized banners from AdBrite on your page and earn up to $1/1000 impressions depending on validity of visitor. Note that these are impressions or CPM rates, your visitor just has to see them, they do not have to click on the ads or buy anything. That is why the rates are lower than ' pay per click ' banners. AdBrite pay out monthly by cheque for earnings over $10 and pay me regularly.
Remember, these are all free to join; you have no outgoings other than your normal internet connection which you have anyway. To be perfectly frank, the only downside to these deals is that it takes up your time to organise the links, and your browser and/or web site will run a bit slower while advertising banners load.
The Internet is fast changing - please let us know if a good deal comes along or if you find a crooked deal; contact simetric.co.uk and we will check it out and give it an unbiased opinion.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Security Recommendations
| | Restrict access to your e-gold account e-gold's Account Sentinel™ (a.k.a. AccSent™) enhances the security of your e-gold account by enabling you to direct the circumstances under which your account may be accessed. AccSent was designed to provide you an additional level of protection in the event your passphrase is compromised due to poor security practices on your part (we hope this does not describe you!). However, AccSent's features should not be regarded as diminishing the importance of reading and practicing ALL of the recommendations on this page. | ||||||||
![]() | Do not click links in unsolicited email messages
| ||||||||
![]() | Verify website identity before entering passphrase Fraudulent "phishing" websites designed to trick you into divulging your passphrase or other sensitive information are common. Spoofed e-mail (see above) is commonly used to lure victims to phishing websites. Never assume that a website is the website you intended to be at based on its appearance. Before entering your e-gold passphrase, ensure you are at the real e-gold website by:
| ||||||||
![]() | Keep your operating system and applications updated Use Windows Update to make sure you have the latest security patches installed. Also check for updates to your application programs, especially Microsoft Office. | ||||||||
![]() | Use a hardware and/or software firewall A firewall can protect your computer from malicious traffic. A hardware firewall/router (such as the many offerings of companies like Linksys, D-Link, SMC, and others) acts as a barrier between the outside world and your computer. A software firewall, such as ZoneAlarm, performs that function to a lesser degree but can also block malicious programs on your computer from sending data out to the Internet. Windows XP includes a simple firewall, but it is disabled by default. The free version of ZoneAlarm does a very nice job. | ||||||||
![]() | Do not run untrusted applications Running any program that arrives via email or that was downloaded from the Internet can be dangerous. Only run applications that you wish to grant complete access to your computer and the data contained on it. | ||||||||
![]() | Upgrade to a better web browser You're already using Better MoneyTM - now choose a better browser. Mozilla's Firefox is available for almost every operating system and has many security and privacy advantages. Try "tabbed browsing". Manage your cookies. Block pop-up windows. The features are many, but the cost is low - in fact free. (Note that e-gold donations are accepted by the Mozilla Foundation). | ||||||||
![]() | Use an Anti-Virus program If you follow all of the the above recommendations a virus will have difficulty infecting your computer. However, since a computer virus can be a vehicle for a criminal to gain total control of your computer and thereby any information stored on, sent by, or received by your computer, it is prudent to install antivirus software from a reputable source and run it regularly. Since new viruses are discovered daily, it is important to keep antivirus software and the virus definitions it uses for detection up to date at all times. |
Saturday, July 14, 2007
How Did I Get Rich ONLINE ?
This short introduction explains the basics of trading Forex online, a brief explanation of the markets and the major benefits of trading Forex online. There are also two scenarios describing the implications of trading in a bear as well as bull market to better acquaint you with some of the risks and opportunities in the largest and most liquid market in the world
As an additional aid for those who are new to Forex, there is also a glossary at the bottom of this text which explains some of the terms used in connection with currency trading. ection with currency trading.- Overview
Foreign exchange , forex or just Forex are all terms used to describe the trading of the world's many currencies. The forex market is the largest market in the world, with trades amounting to more than $1.5 trillion every day. This is more than one hundred times the daily trading on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) . Most forex trading is speculative , with only a few percent of market activity representing governments' and companies' fundamental currency conversion needs.Unlike trading on the stock market, the forex market is not carried out by a central exchange, but on the “interbank” market , which is thought of as an OTC (over the counter ) market. Trading takes place directly between the two counterparts necessary to make a trade, whether over the telephone or on electronic networks all over the world. The main centres for trading are Sydney, Tokyo, London, Frankfurt and New York. This worldwide distribution of trading centres means that the forex market is a 24-hour market.
- Trading Forex
A currency trade is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another one. The currency combination used in the trade is called a cross (for example, the Euro/US Dollar, or the GB Pound/Japanese Yen.). The most commonly traded currencies are the so-called “majors” – EURUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF and GBPUSD.
The most important forex market is the spot market as it has the largest volume. The market is called the spot market because trades are settled “immediately” or on the spot. In practice this means within two banking days.
- Forward Outrights For forward outrights, settlement on the value date selected in the trade means that even though the trade itself is carried out immediately, there is a small interest rate calculation left. This is because if you trade e.g. NOKJPY, you get almost 7% (annual) interest in Norway and close to 0% in Japan. So, if you borrow money in Japan, to finance the trade as you must have one currency with which to buy or another, and place it in Norway you have a positive interest rate differential. This differential has to be calculated and added to your account. You can have both a positive and a negative interest rate differential, so it may work for or against you when you make a trade. The interest rate differential doesn't usually affect trade considerations unless you plan on holding a position with a large differential for a long period of time. The interest rate differential varies according to the cross you are trading. On the USDCHF, for example, the interest rate differential is quite small, whereas the differential on NOKJPY is large.
- Trading on Margin
Trading on margin means that you can buy and sell assets that represent more value than the capital in your account. Forex trading is usually done with relatively little margin since currency exchange rate fluctuations tend to be less than one or two percent on any given day. To take an example, a margin of 2.0% means you can trade up to $500,000 even though you only have $10,000 in your account. In terms of leverage this corresponds to 50:1, because 50 times $10,000 is $500,000, or put another way, $10,000 is 2.0% of $500.000. Using this much leverage gives you the possibility to make profits very quickly, but there is also a greater risk of incurring large losses and even being completely wiped out. Therefore, it is inadvisable to maximise your leveraging as the risks can be very high. For more information on the trading conditions at Saxo Bank, go to the Account Summary on your Client Station and open the section entitled "Trading Conditions" found in the top right-hand corner of the Account Summary.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
More about e-gold
So a year after the Department of Justice raided his offices, Douglas Jackson, president of Gold and Silver Reserve, which operates e-gold, has been wading deep into his customer transaction logs to identify and fight back against people who misuse his system. In the last month, he's blocked about 2,000 accounts from his system, and he's voluntarily turned over detailed account and transaction histories to federal law enforcement.
In the process, Jackson says he's exposed an illicit and previously invisible economic underground.
"It's like discovering an undisturbed tomb in Egypt where you've got this archaeological thing," Jackson says about the wealth of data he's uncovered. "There will never be another crack like this one where all of these people have left their footprints with memos that sometimes give us clues as to what they're doing."
E-gold is a privately issued digital currency backed by real gold and silver stored in banks in Europe and Dubai. Jackson says about 1,000 new e-gold accounts are opened daily, and the system processes between 50,000 and 100,000 transactions a day.
With a value independent of any national legal tender, the electronic cash has cultivated a libertarian image over the years, while drawing the ire of law enforcement agencies who frequently condemn it publicly as an anonymous, untraceable criminal haven, inaccessible to police scrutiny.
Jackson says the image is false. Although a user can open an account using a fraudulent name and a proxy server that shields his or her IP address, a permanent record of every transaction remains in the e-gold system, which can help law enforcement agencies track criminals.
Jackson says he first became aware that credit card thieves were laundering money through e-gold from 2004 news stories about a Secret Service bust of Shadowcrew, a website where carders congregated. He contacted the Secret Service and pleaded with them to work with him to catch the carders, but the agency inexplicably rebuffed him.
Last December, the Department of Justice raided the Melbourne, Florida, office of Gold and Silver Reserve, and seized more than 100 boxes of paper records in a move dubbed Operation Goldwire.
"They basically raped our computers and also took us offline for 36 hours, took all the paper out of our office," Jackson says. The government also froze Gold and Silver's U.S. bank account. The company survived, Jackson says, only because its euro, pound and yen accounts are maintained outside the United States.
Jackson says the criminal affidavit, filed under seal, accused Gold and Silver of aiding terrorists and child pornographers. But prosecutors later dropped the criminal claim, replacing it with a civil complaint charging Gold and Silver with operating as an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Jackson's lawyers say the charge is bogus because Gold and Silver isn't a money transmitter, since the company doesn't accept cash from customers, only wire transfers. That case is on hold until April, and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the suit.
Rather than attack him, Justice officials and the Secret Service should have been working with him, says Jackson. Because all the while they were trying to build a case against e-gold, he was gathering evidence that could help them battle the real criminals.
Around the time of the Shadowcrew bust, Jackson's staff developed a method for doing global searches in e-gold transactions. So Jackson decided to see if he could find carders in his system by searching the "memo" field, where -- like the memo line on a check -- the sender can note the reason for the transaction. Jackson says some carders, apparently so convinced of their invisibility, don't try to hide the nature of their activity.
He searched keywords from news articles about carders, such as "cvv," "dumps" and "cob." The first two terms refer to data encoded on the magnetic stripe of credit cards; the last one stands for "change of billing," referring to credit card accounts for which a crook has changed the billing address to a mail drop under his control.
Jackson also searched the online nicknames of specific carders that law enforcement agents mentioned in news reports or at a cybercrime conference Jackson attended: names like Zoomer, Kayser Sose, Smash, Segvec, Jilsi, Ragoo and John Dillinger, a carder who described his crimes for Wired News earlier this year and who recently signed a plea agreement to cooperate with authorities.
Jackson says some culprits that authorities deemed "unfindable" were easy to track through e-gold. One appeared to be a high school kid in Louisville, Ohio, judging from information gleaned from his transactions. Jackson tracked two others to Egypt after one of them converted e-gold to cash and had an intermediary load it onto a debit card sent to him by courier.
Jackson identified a core group of accounts that appeared to involve carding, and made lists of accounts that exchanged e-gold with them. Patterns emerged. Beginning earlier this year, for example, one account-holder in New York purchased postal orders worth about $6,000 twice a month from three different post offices, exchanged them for e-gold and transferred the funds to an account-holder in the Ukraine. Altogether he purchased about 30 postal orders totaling more than $150,000.
In other accounts he found a $17,000 transaction supposedly "for beer" and $10,000 for Louis Vuitton purses. Over two weeks last February, one account-holder moved $29,000 worth of e-gold to purchase Sony Vaio computers, followed two days later by $30,000 for more Sony Vaios, and $40,000 four days after that. The recipient of the funds accumulated more than $900,000 in e-gold over a brief period of time, more than half of which remained parked in his account.
The timing of the transactions, last spring, corresponded with news articles reporting a serious wave of debit card breaches across the country that caused several banks to reissue compromised cards.
By matching other data, like time stamps, IP addresses and hashes of passwords, Jackson could sometimes identify when one person controlled or used different accounts. "The good ones will have a different IP address every time they touch the internet," he says. "But every once in a while you get one of these bad guys on one of these accounts where ... he may use a fixed IP."
Jackson decided that law enforcement needed to know about what he'd found.
He'd received and complied with hundreds of subpoenas in the past -- from FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Agency and international law enforcement agencies. But this time he had trouble finding someone to work with him. Since the Secret Service had already dismissed him, he approached the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, but got the runaround. Jackson said one agency wanted his company to sign an agreement stating he wouldn't be immune from prosecution if authorities, in the process of obtaining information from him, found something that could incriminate e-gold.
He refused to sign, but began assisting postal inspectors and other agents voluntarily.
Jackson acknowledges some discomfort over the decision to give information to the feds without legal process -- a move that could save e-gold from further law enforcement aggression, while tarnishing its libertarian sheen.
His lawyers aren't bothered by the move, however. They say agents repeatedly promised to provide Jackson with court orders since last February but have not come through.
"You have a very strong documented relationship with these agents asking about particular people with the promise that they are going to be subpoenaing," says Jackson attorney Andrew Ittleman. "Just because they never ultimately gave him a subpoena doesn't put the fault on Jackson -- it's on the agents. He was acting in good faith."
His lawyers also say that once the company discovered evidence of possible wrongdoing, it had no choice but to hand over information to the government. Jackson could even have been charged with aiding and abetting money launderers under federal statutes if he didn't report the suspicious activity.
"E-gold, because of the way in which it operates, creates the potential for a misuse," says lead attorney Mitchell Fuerst. "And to the extent that that can happen, I think the company has an ethical and a legal obligation to prevent those crimes from being committed."
But the company thinks it's unlikely that anyone involved in illicit activity would sue e-gold for blocking their account or giving their data to law enforcement.
Kevin Bankston, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says e-gold is violating its privacy policy, which states that the company won't hand over data except under court order. Its actions "could open it to liability under contract violation and false advertising and unfair competition claims," he says.
In November, Jackson began running an automated script to blacklist accounts he identified as suspicious. The digital funds aren't frozen, and the account holder can conceivably get the money out by transferring it to another account he controls, or to a different e-gold customer. But then those accounts get blocked, too.
"We're looking to make these people into vagabond zombies," he says. "They can log into the account and send payment to someone who's willing to accept payment from them, but at that other person's risk."
But the aggressive policing is chafing some users, who say they did nothing wrong and were improperly banned.
Cesar Carranza runs a business called uBuyWeRush selling liquidation and overstock merchandise online and from three California stores. He uses e-gold for some overseas customers because, unlike credit card and PayPal transactions, e-gold purchases are irreversible and there are no charge-backs to the merchant.
"I am a reputable merchant," he says. "I am not a con artist or a thief."
Carranza was arrested in 2004 but never charged with anything. At the time, he was selling MSR-206s through eBay -- devices used to encode data on the magnetic strip of credit cards. It's not illegal to sell them, but carders often use them to code stolen credit and debit card numbers onto blank cards. Carranza says police accused him of selling merchandise to terrorists. He's since sold the MSR part of his business.
Last month, e-gold blocked two of his accounts containing about $19,000, providing little information about why. Carranza says the block hasn't hurt his business but he'll never use e-gold again and is considering legal action to get his funds. "I no longer trust the e-gold integrity," he says.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
E-Gold Gets Tough on Crime
The founder of PayPal competitor e-gold has grown tired of the government characterizing his business as a haven for money launderers, terrorists, child pornographers and credit card thieves.
So a year after the Department of Justice raided his offices, Douglas Jackson, president of Gold and Silver Reserve, which operates e-gold, has been wading deep into his customer transaction logs to identify and fight back against people who misuse his system. In the last month, he's blocked about 2,000 accounts from his system, and he's voluntarily turned over detailed account and transaction histories to federal law enforcement.
In the process, Jackson says he's exposed an illicit and previously invisible economic underground.
"It's like discovering an undisturbed tomb in Egypt where you've got this archaeological thing," Jackson says about the wealth of data he's uncovered. "There will never be another crack like this one where all of these people have left their footprints with memos that sometimes give us clues as to what they're doing."
E-gold is a privately issued digital currency backed by real gold and silver stored in banks in Europe and Dubai. Jackson says about 1,000 new e-gold accounts are opened daily, and the system processes between 50,000 and 100,000 transactions a day.
With a value independent of any national legal tender, the electronic cash has cultivated a libertarian image over the years, while drawing the ire of law enforcement agencies who frequently condemn it publicly as an anonymous, untraceable criminal haven, inaccessible to police scrutiny.
Jackson says the image is false. Although a user can open an account using a fraudulent name and a proxy server that shields his or her IP address, a permanent record of every transaction remains in the e-gold system, which can help law enforcement agencies track criminals.
Jackson says he first became aware that credit card thieves were laundering money through e-gold from 2004 news stories about a Secret Service bust of Shadowcrew, a website where carders congregated. He contacted the Secret Service and pleaded with them to work with him to catch the carders, but the agency inexplicably rebuffed him.
Last December, the Department of Justice raided the Melbourne, Florida, office of Gold and Silver Reserve, and seized more than 100 boxes of paper records in a move dubbed Operation Goldwire.
"They basically raped our computers and also took us offline for 36 hours, took all the paper out of our office," Jackson says. The government also froze Gold and Silver's U.S. bank account. The company survived, Jackson says, only because its euro, pound and yen accounts are maintained outside the United States.
Jackson says the criminal affidavit, filed under seal, accused Gold and Silver of aiding terrorists and child pornographers. But prosecutors later dropped the criminal claim, replacing it with a civil complaint charging Gold and Silver with operating as an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Jackson's lawyers say the charge is bogus because Gold and Silver isn't a money transmitter, since the company doesn't accept cash from customers, only wire transfers. That case is on hold until April, and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the suit.
Rather than attack him, Justice officials and the Secret Service should have been working with him, says Jackson. Because all the while they were trying to build a case against e-gold, he was gathering evidence that could help them battle the real criminals.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
What is e-gold ?
Asset protection
Unlike fractional-reserve banking, e-gold holds 100% of clients' funds in reserves with a store of value. Proponents of the e-gold system contend that e-gold deposits are protected against inflation, devaluation and other possible economic risks inherent in fiat currencies. These risks include the monetary policy of countries or territories, which are perceived by proponents to be harmful to the value of paper currency.
The repository of the actual bullion bars with serial numbers and other data can be seen using the live "Examiner" function on the e-gold web site. Bullion is held in allocated storage with Brink's Global Services (part of The Brink's Company), Transguard Security Services (part of The Emirates Group) or MAT Securitas Express AG (part of the VIA MAT Group) [7]. Clients hold an unallocated share of this allocated bullion.
The user may take physical delivery of the precious metal upon payment of an additional fee, and provided the user has an available balance of at least the weight of the smallest individual item displayed in the Examiner. This is currently a 32 troy ounce gold bar, which is worth approximately $20,000. However in practice, most users permit the company to store the metal for them.
Bullion investing
- Main articles: Gold as an investment and silver as an investment
e-gold is a form of commodity money, so it is subject to the price fluctuations of that commodity. If the price of gold drops versus a national currency, the value of e-gold drops in that currency. The account balance, which is denominated in gold grams, does not change, but its purchasing power will change in relation to the gold price.
This can, of course, work both ways. Proponents of the e-gold system would argue that the risk of significant price fluctuation is small compared to the risk of value fluctuations among fiat currencies. The opposite argument is that a typical user is more affected by changes in the price of e-gold than of fiat currencies; this is because most people are paid in and spend their local currency, while the use of e-gold will typically involve a foreign exchange transaction each time. In both cases, long-term shifts in the price of a currency or e-gold affect its owner, but anyone who frequently buys and sells e-gold will be exposed to short-term fluctuations as well. The price of gold has increased over the past five years [8], so this factor has worked out to the advantage of anyone holding e-gold over that period.
As well as digital gold, e-gold also offers e-silver, e-palladium and e-platinum. Funds can be switched between e-metals using their sister company OmniPay. Metal-to-metal (or M2M) exchanges are completed at spot price with no bid/offer spread.
Exchanging for currency
e-gold does not sell its e-metal directly to users. Instead digital currency exchangers, such as OmniPay (a sister company of e-gold), and numerous independent companies act as market makers selling e-metal in exchange for other currencies and a transaction fee. Conversely, these exchange providers will buy e-metal with other currencies, again taking a transaction fee. In this manner e-metals can be converted back and forth to a variety of national currencies. The amount of a particular currency or e-metal necessary to complete a transaction is determined by the spot price of the metal in relation to the value of the currency. e-gold is known as private currency as it is not issued by governments.
Compared to other systems like PayPal, the process of buying e-gold can be confusing to a person unfamiliar with the e-gold system. e-gold, unlike e-Bullion for instance, does not sell digital currency directly to the user. According to their website the reason e-gold does not provide an in-house exchange service is so there can be no debt or contingent liabilities associated with the business, making e-gold Ltd. absolutely free of any financial risk. They claim e-gold Ltd. does not possess currency of any nation or even have a bank account.
Fees
e-gold charges an account fee (or Agio Fee) of 1% per annum (deducted in monthly payments) on all e-metal stored.
Spending e-gold is free, with processing fees (or Spend Fees) deducted from the recipient. As of 2006 these spend fees vary on a sliding scale from 55% for very small amounts (0.0004 grams of gold, worth about 1 cent) to 5% for amounts on the order of 0.1 gram (about $2) to 1% for amounts of over 1 gram (about $20), with a maximum fee of 0.05 grams (about $1). [9]
e-gold spends clear instantly, in contrast to cheques or credit card transactions. Unlike other online payment systems such as PayPal, there are no distinctions between merchant and non-merchant e-gold accounts. Anyone can instantly create a "merchant account" (there is only one type of account). All e-gold accounts carry the same fees and have the same capacity to receive and transmit e-gold account holdings.
Universal currency
Proponents claim that e-gold offered the first truly borderless global currency system which was independent of exchange rate variations. Gold, silver, platinum and palladium each have recognised international currency codes under ISO 4217.
Incentive program
e-gold clients can place a referral link on a website to generate a few cents in referral income. If a new client sets up an e-gold account from someone else's referral link, it is harmless and does not cost the new client any money when performing future e-gold transactions [10]. An e-gold user who recruits a new user, is henceforth compensated with a percentage of all future processing fees that this new user pays. This is a legal multi-level marketing practice, as users are paid from actual payment processing fees rather than simply for recruiting new users.
Crime and fraud
e-gold has been perceived as the medium of choice for many online con-artists, with pyramid schemes and High Yield Investment Programs ("HYIPs") commonplace. This has been blamed on e-gold's policy of irreversible transactions. However, e-gold is now blocking accounts where fraud is proven or suspected [11].
e-gold and OmniPay have also been accused of being a medium for money laundering, although this is questionable given that there were only 24 customer accounts holding over 10kg of gold (approximate value $200,000) by April 2006 [12]. As digital gold currency providers are not banks, they are not legally required to perform various sorts of "know your customer" background checks. However, many legitimate e-gold exchange providers, for example GoldNow, may require a higher level of identification, generally more intrusive than a bank, for security purposes.
Opening an account at www.e-gold.com takes only a few clicks of a mouse. Customers can use a false name if they like because no one checks. With a credit card or wire transfer, a user buys units of e-gold. Those units can then be transferred with a few more clicks to anyone else with an e-gold account. For the recipient, cashing out — changing e-gold back to regular money — is just as convenient and often just as anonymous. [13]
In January 2006, BusinessWeek reported on the use of the e-gold system by ShadowCrew, an 4000-strong international crime syndicate involved in massive identity theft and fraud [14]. Omar Dhanani of Fountain Valley, California, connected to the ShadowCrew, is an e-gold customer and is reported to have moved amounts ranging from $40,000 to $100,000 a week from proceeds of crime through e-gold [15].
In response, Chairman and founder, Dr. Douglas Jackson published a letter which stated that "e-gold operates legally and does not condone persons attempting to use e-gold for criminal activity. e-gold has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement agencies in the US and worldwide, providing data and investigative assistance in response to lawful requests." He further noted that "Our staff has participated in hundreds of investigations supporting the FBI, FTC, IRS, DEA, SEC, USPS, and others." [16].
In August 2006, WORLDLawDirect lawyers announced e-gold Ltd. officials and their legal counsel to be the subject of a U.S. Federal Court subpoena. They believe e-gold Ltd. is subject to U.S. Federal Court jurisdiction and may be held liable for some or all of the investors' losses (and potential triple damages) in the Solid Investment (Solidinvestment.com) large scale HYIP scam [17].
Thursday, May 3, 2007
PTP (Pay to Post)
Get-paid-forum.com
2 cents per post
4 cents per topic
min cashout: 1$
Egold-world.com/forum
1 cent per post
2 cents per topic
NO min cashout, paying in sundays
Goldreferrals.com
1 cent per post
2 cents per topic
NO min cashout but one time in month
www.onlinemoneyforum.net
Not paying but you can earn money for lotto
accepting sign-profit banner this forum haves a lot members
SOON I WILL UPDATE THIS POST WITH MORE FORUMS
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Sign-profit my best program
Current payout rate:
$1.25 Per 1000 impressions
$0.003 Per click on your ad
Min withdraw limit is :
$0.5
Sign-Profit: Sign Profit is a program that can give you advertising revenue from each page on your website, blog or post on forums - with a minimal investment of time and no additional resources.
What's Sign Profit?
Sign Profit is a part of Sign Network. We connect Customers and Advertisers using a unique, non-standart concept.
How does it work?
It's very simple. Register new a new account with Sign Profit , get the banner code , insert it into your signature. From this moment, Sign Profit will pay You every time somebody is viewing forum page or website with your post(s) or ads.
How much will i earn?
Current payment schedule is available for registered members in their private login area, but almost anyone can earn a few hundreds of dollars monthly by just placing the banner code into the signature.
Payment methods:
Sign Profit uses e-gold for instant withdrawals. You are not allowed to withdraw unless your account has been registered 14 days prior the first withdrawal request.
Is this allowed?
Yes, it is. We have custom ad-blocks built according to the individual rules for each forum or website.
Tell me more about referral program.
Sign Network has powerfull and simple referral program:
10% of every deposit of all Sign Ads advertizers referred by your ad-block in signature;
10% of every withdrawal of all Sign Profit members referred by your ad-block in signature;
Every comission payment is deposited directly to your account balance. Don't forget that all withdrawals are instant
You can regist here :
http://sign-profit.com/cgi-bin/ck.pl?id=139504







