According to Internet Lawyer, Mike Young, the FTC just shut down a known scammer named Daniel Greenburg, and fined him to the tune of $2,000,000, and was forced to give up a few personal possessions as part of the settlement. While I won’t go into detail about what he was doing wrong, I can say that it had to do with shady billing practices.

Look, there is so much potential to make money legally so why the hell would you risk doing something illegal to make a few bucks. Not worth it, even if it does make millions. I’d rather work smart and build a real, scalable online business that fills a real need.

In my other life, I’m involved in the direct marketing industry, a sector that the FTC has come down hard in the last few years. A lot of businesses were shut down for bad customer service and not letting customers cancel out of their negative option orders. A negative option is a business practice in which goods or services are provided automatically and the customer will end up paying for the good or service at a pre-determined billing date, unless the customer chooses to opt out first (usually by calling a customer service line). Even now, they have cracked down on 3rd party upsells, forcing you to recapture all of the billing information (and that means the credit card number too) in order to authorize the 3rd party sale. This 3rd party offer is typically presented after the initial order is made for several reasons.

Well, before the whole acaii berry crackdown, there were many scrupulous marketers online and offline, that didn’t properly disclose billing terms so the customer thought that it was truly a FREE TRIAL** and end up getting billed monthly. That’s why it pays to involve yourself with reputable companies within your entire network. From the call center, to the media company, to your script writers.

Follow the law and don’t try to deceive anyone. Good salesmanship comes from being truthful and offering real value. Relying off from gimmicks to get a sale is a crutch that can be kicked out from under you, causing your whole business to fall flat on your face. Provide your proper disclosures, and don’t be a slick marketer.

** A free trial is typically advertised as a RISK free trial. This is called soft offer advertising, where the price isn’t disclosed, because it can drive a lot of calls. The customer usually hears what they want to hear: FREE TRIAL. Well, it’s not FREE. It’s RISK Free.

Ah yes. The tin-foil hat. A symbol for paranoia and conspiracy theories. In terms of SEO, these conspiracy theories are all over the place. Let’s see, there is the duplicate content myth, the sandbox myth, and a slew of other myths that get passed around for truth (the biggest problem is that most people don’t actually do any of their own testing. i.e. want to know if 10k links will bury a brand new site permanently? Try it our for yourself!). Ok, back on point.

While there are a lot of myths out there that a lot of respectable SEOs even prescribe to, there are a lot of things to consider and to pay attention to.

I’m talking about the big G and their ability to bring down your entire network.

I don’t use adsense on all of my sites (it’s not my primary business model at the moment anyway).

I stopped using google analytics (switched over to statcounter)

I don’t use google webmaster tools.

I use a separate host to forward all the emails to from the accounts I use to backlink.

Here’s the thing. If I am at the mercy of Google’s ability to drive traffic to my site, I want to keep that relationship separate from everything else. If one day a forum admin decides to complain about one of my sites (because I placed an innocent link in the signature box?), then I don’t want to leave any footprints that will link all of my sites together. It’s pretty hard to get rid of 100% of your footprints however. While I do much of the above, I still use the same reseller account for my money sites. I typically use the same registrar, but there is a free whois guard. I typically use the same type of theme, although I am getting out of that and resorting to a few free themes (I’ll explain more about that strategy in another post).

I don’t engage in any hardcore bl*ck hat techniques, I just believe in protecting myself from the very start and work the protection strategies into my business plan as it develops and grows. I don’t want to leave any major trails because this income will be feeding my children and diversity is key here.

As a side note, part of my 5 year plan is to acquire other methods of traffic. Most likely paid (like Facebook ads). It’s all about getting in front of as many (targeted) people as possible.

Are you diversified enough? Do you have all of your eggs in the google basket? Let us know in the comments.

This is what I got today in my fortune cookie. It made me smile a bit. Is this something that I should believe? Hell yes, but not because some fortune cookie told me to do so. Because I am working on my own business should I treat this cookie as a divine message? Probably not. I am usually not one to to look so far into “mystical events” or lucky rabbits feet.

In fact, in a book that I’m reading called The Fastlane to Millions, Mj Demarco talks extensively about a group of people he calls the sidewalkers that leave it up to external events like fortune cookies and lottery winnings to determine their own success in life. What they lack is accountability and responsibility. (by the way, this is an excellent book and a must read for any entrepreneur.)

The fortune cookie made me smile, but not because I think it will bring me good fortune, but because it’s true that I am working on my own business and success is something I look forward to, so it made me smile thinking about it.

Will I now go out and buy a lottery ticket? I don’t believe in funding the stupid tax and I prefer to spend my money on better things, like a large mocha latte :p

Some of my old High School buddies will complain about all things external but never actually look in the mirror to explain why they are stuck where they are now. You can only blame “The Man” for so long before it becomes one dragged out, boring song.

The point of this little rant is that if you want success in business, life, romance or breaking one of the worlds strangest records, you have to go out and find it yourself. You have to hold yourself accountable to where you are now. There are no excuses here. You are where you’re at now because of the choices you’ve made in life. Stop being a side-walker and jump into the fastlane.

Before I go, here is an excellent video of an interview with Will Smith. I never knew Will had this kind of mindset before I saw this.