Tom Kulzer Says No To Mike Filsaime's Viral Friend Generator

In case you haven?t heard, AWeber has banned the usage of Viral Friend Generator and any other Tell-A-Friend (commonly referred to as TAF) scripts. So what does this mean to us as affiliate marketers? It means that anyone who bought Viral Friend Generator since its new launch risks having their AWeber account pulled for violating their anti-spam policies.

Tom Kulzer, CEO of AWeber.com has this to say on the matter:

?TAF forms in nearly all instances work the same way. A website visitor sees your TAF form and types in 1-3 different "friend?s" email addresses. The website itself uses a script or some other backend program to physically send those emails on the visitors behalf to the "friends" that have been entered. Those emails are physically sent from the website owners machine and not the friend themselves.?

Basically AWeber?s stance on the idea of TAF scripts is that they are spam. Their reasoning behind it is that because the email is originating from the offending website?s server and not from the actual person?s email servers, it is unsolicited. And as you well know, sending unsolicited email is a dangerous business and could even be against the law.

Tom went on further to say that because there is no way of authenticating whether or not the person filling out the TAF form is an actual friend of the recipient, it is too easy to exploit a TAF form for email spamming purposes. Because of this, AWeber will not allow anyone who utilizes their services to use TAF scripts on their website. Instead, he suggests using alternative means such as including something in your newsletters encouraging current subscribers of your mailing list to pass your newsletters on to their friends and to also include instructions on how non-members can sign up. In fact he even gives a small snippet as an example of what to add to your mailings:

?Thanks for reading! If you know someone who could benefit from this, feel free to forward it to them! Not a subscriber yet? Like what you?ve read? Sign up to get future issues delivered straight to you: http://www.example.com Until next time!?

The concept of whether or not TAF scripts are spam is still up for debate, but AWeber?s stance is very clear ? if you use their services, you cannot use TAF scripts at all. They are standing strong on this one and even go so far as to say to their customers:

?You don?t have to agree with our position on TAF. But we do expect you to respect it, as we respect your opinion. If you feel that TAF is a necessary element to your marketing, that?s fine, and your decision to make. Just understand that it?s not at all something that can be done with AWeber, so you need to seek out another email solution if you?re going to use TAF.?

All is not lost, however, as AWeber is not the only autoresponder company in town. As a matter of fact, the very creator of Viral Friend Generator, Mike Filsaime, has his own autoresponder service called ProSender. And I?m sure he?s not going to ban you from using his own product.

For more information on affiliate marketing programs and services, please visit my website at www.smalltimeaffiliate.com

Mike Pennachio Internet Marketer For more information on affiliate marketing programs and services, please visit my website at http://www.smalltimeaffiliate.com.