eFront was an
affiliate marketingAffiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts...
network which purchased successful websites, such as
Penny ArcadePenny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic...
and BetaNews, and pooled traffic to those sites to command higher prices for advertising during an industry wide ad revenue slowdown. In 2001 there was a scandal when
ICQICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...
instant messagingInstant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
logs between the CEO
Sam JainJain Shaileshkumar , better known as Sam Jain, is an internet entrepreneur and former CEO of affiliate marketing network eFront, who is currently a fugitive with an arrest warrant in California. In 2000, eFront submitted fraudulent data to Media Metrix, a website ranking publisher...
and other employees were leaked onto the internet through Fuckedcompany.com. The logs detailed activities such as not paying websites that had hosted their
banner adsA web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser...
, sending legal threats to websites that spoke poorly of eFront, and threatening to "rape her and spit on her" (referring to a female webmaster angry about not receiving her check from the company). The logs also detailed how eFront attempted to hire, though never ended up paying,
Something AwfulSomething Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy website housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so...
founder and webmaster Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, ostensibly to have him generate a positive buzz for the company.
Richard Kyanka stated during a presentation at the University of Illinois in October, 2005 that he is still owed $40,000
USDThe United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
by eFront, and that the company ran a number of competitions to attract clients, yet the prizes were awarded to employees
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3318.
As of July 2006, the company's former efront.com domain is currently owned by an unrelated
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
software firm.
http://www.efront.com/
External links