Have you heard the rumor online that the online writing site Factoidz is a scam? It appears that there is a whole school of thought that this is true. I was surprised, since I’ve been a senior writer with the site for over 3 years, and for myself and all the other writers I’ve  known on the site, I’ve never had a problem with the site. In fact quite the opposite – Factoidz pays much better for my writing (on most months they pay 2x to 10x the amount of other sites for the same amount of work) – and they have extremely high standards for content quality. They are also the only writing site I know of that pays you exactly on the 1st of every month, and they pay you each month no matter how little you earned that month. They also keep paying you over the months and years even if you never write with them – and the oddest part is that your articles keep getting more and more traffic after a period of 2 or 3 years – so your earnings keep increasing over time.

Therefore I was quite surprised when I came across a post on Hubpages about Factoidz, on which there was an extensive discussion about Factoidz being a scam site. I read through the comments with much interest – as the discussion was quite lively with lots of drama. It looked at first glance as if there were dozens of writers who had been scammed by the site. However, upon closer inspection it was clear that 2 people were adding almost all the comments telling the scam story.

Then I did a quick search online and what I found was quite surprising. There has been one single person who has been copying and pasting the same “scam” story about Factoidz over and over again on dozens of sites. This user goes uses the pen names Sara Valor, Elizabeth Valor, Qeylar, and Kaylar (why all the permutations, trying to hide something?) I found out what she was up to by searching for exact duplicates of her comments:

I know the site’s admin Michael, and asked him about this. Turns out this was a user who actually tried to scam Factoidz! She was caught using bots to inflate her traffic and earnings on the site and was kicked off (apparently this is a widespread problem among paying article sites). The site admins tried to handle the situation professionally – they even agreed to delete all of her content for her as a courtesy, even though she was able to keep all the upfront bonuses she earned for them prior to getting caught (over $200 in total). Even after all this – she has now decided to go around the web and try to convince people that the site is a scam. She’s proven herself to be low class, since in some of her posts, she’s gone so far as to make racial slurs against the site’s admin (I believe he is Chinese or Vietnamese in decent). There is a rumor that she is affiliated with a newer competing site to Factoidz, which might also be why she’s trying to sabotage the site.

It is amazing the damage that can be done online by a single person with an agenda. I feel that the only right thing to do is to call her out for what she’s doing. Ask anyone on the site – there are thousands of top notch writers on Factoidz, and all of them will vouch that the site is well-run, pays generously, and is a lot of fun to write for. Don’t listen to the few bad apples – these are usually people who got kicked off for one reason or another and can no longer enjoy the great benefits of writing for Factoidz.

MegaUpload, the very large pirated video and software downloading network, has just been targeted by the DOJ in a massive copyright criminal case (one of the largest such cases in history). This is a watershed moment in copyright law, given the ongoing controversy around the SOPA / PIPA issue, it will be important to watch how this case unfolds. MegaUpload represents a crossroads at which current safe harbor law meets mainstream internet usage (the site has millions of visitors a month) and a decision in this case could set an important precedent in online piracy and copyright law.

How MegaUpload’s system works:

• MegaUpload netted over $175 million in revenues over 6 years (MegaUpload was founded in 2005)
• $150 million came from subscriptions, $25 million came from advertising
• Some of MegaUpload’s ad revenues came from Google Adsense. Google banned MegaUpload from Adsense in 2007.
• MegaUpload offered a subscription program allowing its members to download copyrighted materials from its servers in Toronto, LA, and Virginia.
• MegaUpload provided no search facilities. The company allowed third party companies to provide search services. When users found a result on a third party site, they were directed to a link on MegaUpload’s servers where they could download the file.
• The company ran a “Uploader Rewards” program which paid cash bonuses to users who uploaded copyrighted materials.