It appears that ClickBank has put a hold on the new system that was to be implemented by year end. Details can be found here: http://www.clickbank.com/announcement.html

Your hoplinks will expire December 2003. Update your site today!

To better serve our 150,000 clients, ClickBank is retiring its familiar "hoplink" syntax in favor of our new ClickBank Tracking Code. Your existing ClickBank hoplinks will stop working in December 2003.

This change will affect both Affiliates of ClickBank products or services as well as the Vendors. Here's the page with all the details:

ClickBank Is Changing

You'll be able to obtain your new tracking code as well as read through the reasons why they are implementing the new system.

DO NOT OPEN OR INSTALL

There are a lot of these messages circulating that include a 'patch' and they look like they come from MicroSoft. MicroSoft will never send you a patch through email. Here's an example of a header from one of those messages.

Return-path:
Envelope-to: bounce_kit_news@home4success.com
Delivery-date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 11:43:20 -0400
Received: from [195.235.39.5] (helo=infomail.es)
by boston.servershost.net with esmtp (Exim 4.20)
id 1A1SqM-00037Q-CQ
for bounce_kit_news@home4success.com; Mon, 22 Sep 2003 11:43:18 -0400
Received: from gngiq ([213.97.200.121]) by infomail.es
(Tid InfoMail Exchanger v2.20) with SMTP id #1064245289.084180001;
Mon, 22 Sep 2003 17:41:29 +0200
FROM: "MS Corporation Public Support"
TO: " "
SUBJECT:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="jrjglexsphq"
X-Infomail-Spawn: e7610156@tsai.es a 78 destinos
X-Infomail-Id: 1064245293.20E2010A81106E.25293
Message-Id:
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 11:43:18 -0400

Delete it! As you can see it is addressed to the autoresponder I use to send out KIT. It's not something I asked for which is why I've taken the stand against email delivery. It is no longer effective or reliable and can wreak havoc when these jerks get their messages through to the unsuspecting.

I have no doubt that most of you are sick of the 'Nigerian' scam letters, the ads for viagra, diet pills, HGH - how-to increase certain body parts (we won't get into that here), life insurance, decrease your mortgage payments, the one about 'contributing to the moral decay' and of course the spam that suggests your protect yourself from receiving it with the latest and greatest gadget ... this list is endless.

Did you ask for this garbage? I know I didn't! And unless you have your computer protected six ways from Sunday you have a chance of receiving a virus through many of these messages.

Are You Prepared For the Alternative?

The main purpose of this post is to share information about the changes taking place on the Internet today. I've found a few excellent articles that back up the fact that email is no longer 'king' as an effective method of delivery for your ezine or information.

From 3rmarketing, we haveThe Death of Email in New Zealand

Read Is RSS the Answer to the Spam Crisis? if you haven't already.

I shared this link in the last issue of KIT (#97) and it's definitely worth the read. Stop The Presses! by Steve Outing gives you an excellent insight about the current reality of email and the technology that is already replacing it. Take a few minutes to read this article: With E-mail Dying, RSS Offers Alternative - Publishers Must Find New Delivery Methods.

With Email Dying ...

Here I sit at 3:00 a.m. posting the latest issue of KIT to my channel. There's no problem there. Then I send it out through my autoresponder. Of course we have the usual 'full mailboxes', no such addresses and it's a necessary evil. Now it's almost 5:00 a.m. and the bounces and undeliverables have been processed.

But what really gets to me is the fact that I cannot say in plain English what I want to say without tripping those crazy spam filters. No one should be able to tell me I have to doctor words like spam or opt-in or mask the word unsubscribe in order to get my message through to my subscribers. My duty is to my subscribers not to the whims of some crazy filtering system.

I guess I should have a category to cover my rantings. Thanks for listening. And have a great day!

Lois

I got caught with this one this time. I was tired and it sounded familiar and the person the message came from was a 'reliable' source.

If you receive a message asking you to scan your system and delete the Jdbgmgr.exe file if you find it -- DO NOT do it. It is a valid file used by Windows and is the Microsoft Debugger Registrar for Java and is usually part of the Windows download.

Symantec Reference

I was reading an article in Jim Gray's channel about this eBay scam letter that is circulating. He does a good job of explaining how it works and you can get the details here. It looks like a legitimate letter and if you follow through you could end up with a nasty virus. Please read.

This article by Ryan Naraine shows exactly why publishers do not feel able to rely on email delivery as reliable.

"With scam artists, spammers and virus writers all using the e-mail inbox as the main target, it has become a daily nightmare for legitimate online publishers and marketers to cope with mail filters, blacklists and irate subscribers.

Enter RSS (define), the XML syndication format that allows publishers to shuttle content to news aggregators, avoiding the e-mail chaos altogether.


"E-mail is dead, period," declares Chris Pirillo, the Internet entrepreneur who distributes about 400,000 e-mail newsletters weekly. "I don't care what kind of legislation goes through, people aren't signing up for newsletters anymore. People are assuming that every e-mail publisher is a spammer."

To read the full article, please Click Here