Saying there were major violations of every term in its terms of service agreement, 2much.net dumped one of its adult video chat sites.
2much said the site’s Webmaster did respond to the disconnect through last week. 2much also said they were pursuing legal action against the unnamed site.
The service terms violations, 2much said, included spam, "extreme" false advertisement, non-disclosure of revenue, non payment of fees, fraudulent affiliate programs, and misrepresentation to customers, according to media and communications director Greg Jones.
"They flat-out refused to pay their affiliates," Jones said in a formal statement. "They thought they could get away with it as long as they didn't sign the contract, I guess."
That referred to the site's failure to sign a terms of service agreement, which 2much founder/chief executive Mark Prince said finally brought 2much and the unnamed site to loggerheads. "I was too trusting," Prince said in his own statement. "We were supposed to have a terms of service agreement signed long ago. But they kept putting it off. And the alarm bells didn't start until someone at 2much started looking into it."
"What we didn't know," said Jones in the statement, "was the site in question was breaking every term in the agreement, every rule in the book."
Jones said he did not disclose the site's name when reached for comment by AVNOnline.com because 2much plans legal action against them. But Jones did say the site was up for two months and showed such a heavy traffic spike – heavier than reasonably expected for such a brand-new site – that 2much became suspicious.
"Within two to three weeks [they] spiked right up to 20,000-30,000 hits, and we are still in the dark about [their] magic," Jones said. "They did something that drove insane traffic to the site and I'd never seen something like that before, never saw a spike like that before."
Jones also said the site changed all the contact and copyright information on "the face of the site itself, so we weren't able to be contacted by customers. And they were pretty independent. Which we were glad, because we're so swamped sometimes. But this happened so fast. He stripped the site of any identification as to what the platform was, and changed copy on his own."
He said the site generated suspiciously high revenues in its first month – as in, $4,000 first week's profit and $18,000 first month profit, from various indications that didn't set right with 2much.
"We weren't prepared to see something like that. I'm waiting to find out how this happened," Jones said. "When you're peaking at two or three thousand good clean hits a day within a week or two weeks, you're either doing something right or extremely wrong. And they vacillated and wishy-washed about signing the [terms of service] agreement."
The site also featured a LiveCamNetwork.com chat hostess, raising further suspicions. "LiveCamNetwork is our model site, the one we use to exemplify the software to potential customers," said Prince in his statement. "So of course I would have known about their acquiring rights to the photos." Not long after that discovery, the two stopped the site's billing, issued a cease and desist, and "were ignored," according to Jones, prodding 2much to shut the site down entirely.
"We're not competing with the big guys like iFriends on their level," he said. "We have to deal in quality as much for our services as our video and audio streams. It's that simple. If there's a flaw there, then we don't live up to our own standards."
2much has also emphasized its commitment to dealing only with service providers, such as CCBill and MCI, which agree with their terms of service. "We look out for the end-users, the customers of our customers," Prince said. "The consumer is the one who suffers the consequences of unethical business in the end. It's happened to everyone, right? I want to ensure we're a success by making sure people get what they pay for."
