Topic: Are we legally associated with advertised services? (Read 631 times)

First, if you are advertising a service, you are being paid for it and you are not a co-worker. There is a difference between working for a company and being the owner and running a company.

Think of an example that you are a worker in a company. Later if the company do any fraud, the people working in the company won't be faced legal action, only the owner will be held responsible or the board of directors in case the company operate on that model.

I mean, the government thinks that bitcoin mixers are used for illegal activities and it's something they don't like, right? And when you promote a mixer that was noticed to mix coins for darknets and you are directly receiving the money from their platform, doesn't it sound alarming and different from the situation that you gave me as a comparison right now?
This situation isn't exactly white and black area, it's between, the gray one.

But recently I was thinking about one interesting accident that happened some years ago.
There is a company called Driver Sports that was selling pre workout called Craze. This pre workout contained illegal meth-like substance. Finally, this pre workout was pulled from shelves but the company still operates and hasn't even stopped doing business ever. How and why? Especially if we keep in mind that this was one of the best selling and most hyped pre workout of all time.
So, right now I'm really confused who gets punished for what and what kind of logic the government follows.

We all know that but that's never how it works. Criminals can and do easily use their dodgy black-market money on the high street and supermarkets etc but those places would never be prosecuted for money laundering or handling illicit money etc but you as an individual could be if they deem you are handling or interacting with illicit cash. It's sadly just how things work. I always find it funny how people cry that bitcoin is a tool for scammers and drug dealers but 99% of scammers just us bitcoin as a medium to sell for cash and most drug dealers don't accept bitcoin. They only accept cash because it's pretty much untraceable, is very easy to launder and there's no record of it kept, but nobody seems to be making that case right now. I'm sure they will do once they decide to go to a 'digital dollar' so they can keep an eye on everybody's transactions and tax is appropriately.

I have euros, dollars and pound sterling that have most likely at some point been used criminals. Simple evidence: most bank notes contain traces of cocaine, and there are countless other crimes that don't leave physical evidence on the money.
None of this is a problem for me, because money is fungible. And no government would dare take that away, because if they do, it will be the end of money as we know it. Just imagine you can't accept money without checking known and unknown crimes committed by all previous owners.

You don't have to make it complicated. Advertising a product with deadly side effect would introduce other legal concerns. Let's just say that a TV commercial appeared whose company was later on caught to launder funds, and let's assume that company is anonymous for a while, so the feds can't just address the people in charge of the company. You think the TV commercial would continue?

Mixing Bitcoin isn't illegal. Laundering money is. Receiving coins that were used in illegal activity says nothing; you do that every day when you go to the supermarket.

Now I truly want to keep everyone's attention on one thing!
As it seems, there was a signature campaign in 2016 from a bitcoin mixer that seems to be closed as for now. Check Bitmixer.io signature campaign.
This company was paying users automatically from the website. So, I assume users were receiving bitcoins that were mixed and more likely some users would end up with bitcoins that were used for black market and other illegal activities. There are a lot of old forum members, so, has anyone ever had any problem from the payments received from the bitmixer campaign directly from the bitmixer website?
I think that case like this can be a dangerous. If you are promoting a company that the government thinks is a money launder machine and at the same time you actually receive a laundered money from that company, then you probably are in a huge trouble.
I think that this worries don't apply to those who receive money from the campaign managers.

Yes that's true but we can give a hint from the advertising giants like Google and Facebook they have a group of lawyers and are backed by legal firms, they allow the showing of platforms that looks legit but ended scamming people unless reported to them and they got notification they will allow these projects to be broadcast on their platforms, same to us here we will only discontinue until there are rulings or there are a lot of complaints and we don't have liability because we are not directly recruiting

R Kelly is not a celebrity and a famous person.
Kodak black - Do exactly what Kodak black did and let's see if you manage to escape the jail as soon as he did. I don't think anyone will commute your sentence ever.
6ix9ine - Again, commit what he committed and let's see if they'll release you from prison because of coronavirus fears.

So, if TV company advertise company that is a registered trademark but the product of that company says in TV commercial that one of it's side effect is death, if this company advertises product that causes severe addiction development and brutal withdrawals, as far as I understood, this business deal is normal event for both side if the company has trademark. Well, strange.

Okay, I think the best way would be to ask this question someone who is anti-bitcoin and anti-crypto but is lawyer at the same time. If anyone has someone like her as a close friend, will be glad if we get updated, otherwise I think that our logic and the way of explanation may not be interesting in the court.
Sorry 

I want the hammer blow to hit YouTube sooner rather than later. Frankly, I'm disgusted at how it went from being a respectable video broadcasting service to a ruthlessly milked money machine where lawyers are taken 100x more seriously than their own customers.

I know that very well, but I wouldn't be 100% certain that's true from a legislation point of view. There's room for doubt, especially when this kind of advertisement is a necessity for the service.

The TV company, though, doesn't advertise anonymous services. Ever. Companies that desire to be advertised in the telly are registered trademarks.

And they will law enforcement time will not spend some time do an investigation on people they cannot trace the identities since we are all anonymous here. We don't owe anything to anyone if the platform turns bad and scam since in the first place we tend to believe that they are just doing some good business and get reputation for providing good platform to their costumers. Somehow hard to spot scams in first glance so signature campaign participants should not worry anything since the company or well known individual are the one who get sued for this if they been a hardcore promoter of a scampany.

Shouldn't doesn't always mean it won't.
It depends on the jurisdiction. Fortunately, not many countries have the power to request anything from this forum. One of the countries that might have it is the US, but we aren't breaking any US laws... yet.

Let's say some third world country, like some Islamic enclave, decides you are breaking their rules and by reading your posts conclude that you might be a Muslim breaking the rules of their government and their faith. They won't be able to get your IP or anything like that. It's not like someone from Iran can force admins of this forum to share your IP or email address.


That's true because, by law, only those who can decide on the path the company takes can be held responsible. Take FTX as an example. If you were the owner, or a managing director of the company, you're held liable. If you were an employee who had to maintain the servers, make sure the domain is accessible, do backups of the exchange, you're not liable, even if you knew the company could go bankrupt. You did not make it go bankrupt and you had no way to stop it, just as someone who displayed their banner somewhere, or run a show wearing their t-shirt.

We are currently renting our signature space on the forum for advertising purposes. We're not coworkers here; it's business, just like they say. As a result, low enforcement should not harass us for providing a service. When a brand advertises on television and the company ends up with Punishment, the TV company should not be punished. But, yes, low can compel us to remove our signatures and stop doing business with them.

Same could apply in Google, the search engine. Yet, they're accepting almost every advertising offer, including scams. Maybe users just don't care as much as to have their revenue lost.

Constantly advertising scams will also hurt their revenue if it's becomes popular opinion that YouTube is just a wild west of scams and scammers. The whole adpocalypse thing a few years back was spurred on by advertisers being worried about their adverts showing up on problematic content and even terrorist videos etc and withdrawing their ads and Youtube just went full overkill and into panic mode. I'm sure that will happen again someday and they will surely start facing legal consequences when people are continuing to lose money. It's not a good look for them at all and if they don't implement some safety standards they will soon be forced to by regulatory bodies. This stuff wouldn't fly on TV or other advertising platforms so not sure why YouTube will be able to get away with doing little to nothing.

Well, I expected that I would have some affiliation in the eyes of the feds if I'm getting paid with laundered funds.

No, but here's the thing. Binance isn't reliant on a forum. ChipMixer's signatures mean a lot for the service, because outside bitcointalk you'll mostly find scams. Bitcointalk is the "portal" of ChipMixer, and I believe it's already highlighted with a bunch of ads in every single page of this board. Also, just because Binance did launder part of their stash, it doesn't mean every service that launders funds is safe to advertise.

How many years is R Kelly in Jail, Kodak black served, 6ix9ine served, Surge tupac's boss still serving his jail time. What do you think of celebrities; little gods. Indeed it depends on your environment and the emotions you've got for these people. Law is above everyone depending on the level of evidence used on them. Nothing would happen in the world if the Police arrests Messi, his reputation would collapse like Terra. These are not even Government officials.

Are you paid to wear the company's Tshirt in street? so it's quite different from the forum signature since you're being paid to insert it on your signature space. Moreover, putting any code or url on your signature space doesn't guarantee payment.



You don't have any reason to be a part of the money laundry case, the law enforcement focuses only on two parties the company owner and the people that used the company to launder money. For instance, the recent news that Binance is used by drug cartels to launder money. Does it mean everybody that promotes Binance would be arrested? even the direct employees has nothing to bother about other than losing their jobs. CZ is the person to answer for it as the CEO, and if he can provide the names of the drug dealers he can go scot-free; proving to the court that he doesn't work for the cartel. That is if he's arraigned.

No, it's not the kind of affiliation you're thinking about. This is company affiliation not affiliate program.

Affiliation with a company or a service means you are taking a commission from a part of their earnings. It does not mean the money that they pay for marketing. Just think about it. These websites that have ads on them, aren't affiliated with the companies in the ads. They just paid some ad broker to put them on other peoples' websites.


The only reason they are doing that (porn filter) is to avoid a public outcry which would, you guessed it, damage their revenue.

People would still use YouTube even when it's full of scams, as evident today. So clearly (and sadly) there is no outcry to hit their bottom line. These guys only do stuff for their own pockets and not for their users.

Like I said before, there are sadly different rules for massive corporations where there are often little to no consequences other than fines. I don't think tech companies are immune from being prosecuted about advertising certain scams though. I'm sure the laws will change soon enough to become more in line with things like TV advertising where there needs to be standards. On Youtube and Google now it's pretty much the wild West with most people coming across scams: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-scam-ads-fraud-technology-2021-4?r=US&IR=T

Youtube probably has the technology to autoblock porn etc so I'm sure they will or can develop something similar. A human vetting the adds should be the least they do right now until they have the tech.


I believe people have been prosecuted from sharing darknet affiliate codes/links. Perhaps a little different as they're illegal marketplaces that sell drugs and guns etc but don't think it's above the powers that be trying to make the case that Chipmixer is also an illegal service which it may in fact be in certain countries so I would still advise caution.

I think it will depends on where you live and the independency of the court, there's no way you can bribe an independent and professional judge, but if you live in a corrupted country and the judges isn't professional, you can escape from the punishment.

Messi, Elon Musk and any other celebrities can get jailed, I don't think if Messi get jailed, you and other Messi's fans will attack the judges or will try to defend him.

Are you sure? will you try to wear anything with black color and carrying a big bag outside? I'm completely sure anyone will stay away from you and they might call cops since you're seems like a terrorist.