This has been brewing for years, but the double standards shown to 888 / jackpot factory blew it all up.
“eCOGRA believes it is the responsibility of every organisation that represents the interests of the online gaming industry and its players to send a strong signal that the use of this sort of tactic is unethical, dishonest and totally unacceptable to any responsible business.” he said.
Oh really what about 888?
“Including malware in a download to a player’s computer without his knowledge goes far beyond the routine inclusion of harmless advertisement tracking or log on recognition “cookies” and must be discouraged in the strongest possible terms in both the interests of the players and the poor perceptions of the industry that it creates.
Oh really what about 888?
“Trade organisations have been rightly criticised by the player community for their lack of action resulting from the GFED debacle. At eCOGRA, we’re already vigilant in ensuring that this sort of practice does not happen at any of our sealed casinos”.
Oh really what about 888?
Beveridge emphasised that in the case of an eCOGRA Seal casino, there is little likelihood of this kind of situation arising due to enforced policies on management and financial probity verification, in-depth inspection of all operational aspects of an applicant, subsequent ongoing monitoring and review and detailed and specific regulations with which eCOGRA Seal casinos are required to comply.
Oh really what about 888?
“In the event that an operator is found to be in contravention of any of the eGAP requirements, this is reported to the compliance committee.” Beveridge revealed. “If there are no relevant mitigating circumstances, the committee should not hesitate to withdraw the Seal. eCOGRA’s structure, staffing and policies and procedures has been very carefully constituted to provide for effective self-regulation. Any member or approved operator that does not comply with the organisation’s detailed standards effectively undermines the core values and purpose of the initiative, and simply cannot be tolerated,” he said.
Oh really what about 888?
“It is to be regretted that silence and apparent lack of action from industry representative bodies on this issue could result in all being labelled as ineffectual by both outsiders and the playing community. If industry codes and rules already in place are not enforced and supported, it seriously damages the credibility of the organisations concerned,” he concluded.
So back in early 2005 eCOGRA took the opportunity to slam a casino which was not in their corral for their use of malware. At that time 888 was one of the biggest users of malware advertising, yet ecogra ignored it.
Then at the end of that year affiliate bodys started complaining about spam, scraping, blog spamming, and more malware. eCOGRA ignored the complaints as did 888; most likely thinking the issue would slowly fade away like many others. They totally under estimated some people and now they are paying for it.
You just have to love that final paragraph of Andrews!
“It is to be regretted that silence and apparent lack of action from industry representative bodies on this issue could result in all being labelled as ineffectual by both outsiders and the playing community. If industry codes and rules already in place are not enforced and supported, it seriously damages the credibility of the organisations concerned,” he concluded. “
This is exactly what eCOGRA has done with regards to 888 for years! Its sad that it took affiliates complaining and taking action to get them into gear. IMO eCOGRA based on their own reasoning has ZERO credibility.