WTF Gpwa

**Engineer** · 21 September 2011, 10:52 am

Michael/Vin, I'd like to make a request.

When you send the magazine in the future, can you use a more anonymous return address label like IGB does? When I received the magazine yesterday, I was horrified to see a giant "GPWA" logo on the address label, which included the text "Gambling Portal Webmasters Association," followed by the Newton, Mass. address.

I keep the nature of my business private, and it really irritates me when I receive mail with less than discreet return address labels related to gambling.

So -- going forward, can you please do one of the following:

1. Use a return address ONLY (i.e.: delete the GPWA logo and use the street address only).
2. If #1 is not possible, then please cancel my subscription to the magazine.

Thanks....

P.S. robertmedl, I thought your post was very rude. Correcting someone's spelling - seriously? Get a life.

**vinism** · 21 September 2011, 10:58 am

Sorry about that. I'll look into the label process when I return to the office next week and see what I can do.

Originally Posted by Engineer

Michael/Vin, I'd like to make a request.

When you send the magazine in the future, can you use a more anonymous return address label like IGB does? When I received the magazine yesterday, I was horrified to see a giant "GPWA" logo on the address label, which included the text "Gambling Portal Webmasters Association," followed by the Newton, Mass. address.

I keep the nature of my business private, and it really irritates me when I receive mail with less than discreet return address labels related to gambling.

So -- going forward, can you please do one of the following:

1. Use a return address ONLY (i.e.: delete the GPWA logo and use the street address only).
2. If #1 is not possible, then please cancel my subscription to the magazine.

Thanks....

P.S. robertmedl, I thought your post was very rude. Correcting someone's spelling - seriously? Get a life.

**Betpartners** · 21 September 2011, 11:41 am

I am with Lenny and Mojo on this one and I almost never agree with Paula as she will confirm.

The legal issue of this is naturally important, The GPWA probably is well within their rights to publish anything from a public event, however that does not negate Lennys concerns.

Vin states that USA today etc. all operate in a certain way and so does The GPWA, however USA Today and so forth are not a community, The GPWA is, that is a significant difference.

Webmasters and affiliates that are a part of this community should expect The GPWA to act in a manner that protects its members, using legal jargon and so on as a means of justifying what has occurred is a little disingenuous.

I also think that Michaels comments about not knowingly publish a photo, but saying it might happen because it is in a crowd etc. is not helpful either.

This industry is in a very grey area, The GPWA should either get permission from the whole crowd or not publish a picture of a whole crowd, this is not just about USA but other countries where gambling is illegal, Turkey as an example.

The GPWA should take extra care when publishing or naming affiliates, even thinking you can publish the name Lenny S with a photo as being acceptable without permission is IMO wrong, it hardly takes 2 plus 2 to realise who Lenny S would be if there is a photo.

The GPWA has apologised and I agree with the other posters that they it would never have been deliberate, but the defence by The GPWA I find frustrating, common sense should prevail, not the law and not the "out of our control" defence.

The GPWA should review how they proceed with naming and publishing photos of anybody and look to protect the community and avoid this ever happening again.

It is not rocket science and while it may be common knowledge that public events are just that public events and photos can be taken it is also common knowledge that in this industry some affiliates want anonymity.

**GCG** · 21 September 2011, 12:51 pm

This could help but.....it is a risk when you go to a conference so it is better to go in disguise or stay away if you are concerned about your privacy.

**Smoking** · 21 September 2011, 12:54 pm

just a small question
Is a conference not considered private as you have to sign up for it ?

It is not in a public street or area?

Just my 2 cents

**lenny** · 21 September 2011, 4:26 pm

Originally Posted by Renee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law

This is wikipedia, so it's questionable, but this might interest you. I have purposely highlighted a part in red.

It wasnt a public place, it was a private conference. i signed up to be there, the public was not allowed in, it was invite only.

Originally Posted by mojo

Thanks Renee. Good to know. Technically and legally I suppose that applies.

It's funny to me, we are the gambling industry. What is the capital of gambling? Vegas. What is their motto? What happens here stays here.

Maybe that applies to online gambling, but only when it suits us? Lenny probably doesn't have a leg to stand on legally, who knows. Neither would anyone in Vegas. But what about trust? Would anyone who was just trying to be low key go back to Vegas if they saw their pic in some magazine? Course not. Discretion is the key. Personally, I am really tired of the constant pictures of people drunk and then they scream about professionalism.

Reading this, will someone post my chats? Or my emails? I read wiki, those are up for grabs to. Where is the line?

It's funny how we have absolutly no boundry's on some things. But we demand boundry's if we question things.

It's not about you Renee,. Just venting again. Thanks for listening.

Thank You

Originally Posted by AK

Renee, Can I grope your tits ? What I thought was a men's only magazine has turned into my favorite porn mag. Keep up the great work.

signed

ak

LMK When you do that, i need a pic to post on the new site im launching affiliateconferencehappenings.com People be careful what you do in the future, you might be featured on our homepage

Originally Posted by MichaelCorfman

Vin posted a reply after discussing the situation here yesterday. We both thought it was appropriate for him to respond given that he is the managing editor for the magazine and so is the person most directly involved in oversight in matters like this. However, I'd also like to respond as well.

First of all, Lenny, you made the following request in your post:

I'd like to start by stating that you can be sure we will never knowingly publish a photograph that includes you again. I say knowingly because there could be cases where we might not know. For example, in a photograph of a large number of people in a public setting it is not possible to identify everyone in a picture.

From a journalistic point of view we do want to cover and provide a flavor of industry events. But we certainly don't want to upset folks as is the case with Lenny here. Up until now I think we've done a good job on that front.

I also think it is appropriate to point out that we don't take all of the photos we publish ourselves. While I was at the event Lenny attended, I didn't take many pictures myself. So our editorial team asked others if they had photos that could be published in the magazine in our coverage about the event. The photo in question and the names of the individuals in the photo were provided to us for our use in the magazine. However, because we have never felt it appropriate to identify webmasters to others outside the industry, we have never published full names or identified where a webmaster lives without explicit permission. That was the case with the photo that included Lenny. So he was identified simply as "Lenny S." without any further information being provided in the interest of preserving general anonymity outside of folks who already knew him.

In an earlier post in this thread Mojo made the following comment:

This is not actually correct. When the editorial team put together the magazine they had no knowledge of whether or not Lenny was a GPWA member, they did not know his GPWA username, and they did not know who he was based on his participation here.

I would like to be clear that I'm not happy that what transpired upset a member here.

Michael

I realize that it wasnt intentional, but you also living in the US should know how grey of an area we are in.. The quieter we are the better.

Originally Posted by robertmedl

A few things.

First, photos in public places and industry events don't require the permission of anyone to publish. Period. Isn't this common knowledge? If not, it certainly should be from anyone that is so concerned about their privacy.

You lost all credibility here, pal. Anyone who claims legal action from their "lawyers" (plural, no less -- as if you have a team waiting by!) is full of it. People that have a team of lawyers (or even one) simply act and sue -- they don't threaten.

You're totally out of line with this comment. It's simply ridiculous to make this claim as evidenced by the GPWA's long-running site and magazine. If your statement were true, webmasters would abandon the GPWA in a heartbeat, never to return. Get a clue. And cancel your GPWA membership.

Finally, it's 'tact'. Have your lawyers get you a dictionary.

Actually Robert, theres no need to respond to you after taking a look at your sites..

Originally Posted by GCG

This could help but.....it is a risk when you go to a conference so it is better to go in disguise or stay away if you are concerned about your privacy.

Link to Purchase?

Originally Posted by Smoking

just a small question
Is a conference not considered private as you have to sign up for it ?

It is not in a public street or area?

Just my 2 cents

Yes it is a private event, the public was not allowed in..

Anyway, I just like to keep low key, a few others i spoke with from the US try to stay as quiet as possible too.. Maybe over cautious but better this way.... Its easy for someone from Australia or Europe where it is ok to work for a gambling company to say whats the big deal, its not the same thing here..

**casinobonusguy** · 22 September 2011, 12:24 am

I would like to say these photos were taken by my husband as he does every year at CBG weekend and we share them via private email with all the people who asked us for copies.We have been running this conference for 4 years now and we never publish any photos on our own website .As the event planner I will ensure at future events we do have a special photo area set up for those who do like to have their photos taken and ensure we have proper consent forms if required.Personally we took the photos for our own memories and had no intentions of ever publishing them as we like our event to stay small and under the wire.
I was asked by a gpwa staff who some people were and I provided names if I could and assumed any one in the photos would be contacted .GPWA has attended our event every year and I appreciate all their support and advise we receive from Michael.
I would like to thank Lenny for bringing this to my attention and be assured we will have our gaming lawyer look at ways we can improve our procedures in the future.
Judy

**AmCan** · 22 September 2011, 9:57 pm

This isn't about what is legal to photograph or publish. This is about privacy, just because many in this business choose to brand themselves, like casino master or publicly challenge the government as Michael/Casino City did, doesn't mean that everybody wants their names and photos being circulated.

Some of us would like to both participate in industry events and keep our privacy. If you are so confident that what you do is legal and there is no danger to people knowing then you should walk into FBI headquarters, leave your name, a list of domains and a short paragraph of what you do for a living and show us how we're all too paranoid about our privacy. When you've done that feel free to lecture the rest of us on how we shouldn't expect our privacy to respected.

The only person in this group who has done anything close to that is Michael and I don't suspect he's planning such a lecture.

**I-Dave** · 24 September 2011, 7:03 am

Originally Posted by AK

Renee, Can I grope your tits ? What I thought was a men's only magazine has turned into my favorite porn mag. Keep up the great work.

signed

ak

LOL! Well, it is about this, but somehow when you do see so called affiliate managers or other self appointed industry figures totally drunk in these conferences, and er, maybe onto some other things, why would you want to be associated with that commercially, or any other way? How funny is it really? Then some of that comes on the gpwa proudly saying how they were completely mashed out, how fun it was. I think it shows what they truly are, pretty sad.

**pompeyrayuk** · 24 September 2011, 7:29 am

In a world full of murder,abduction,****,child abuse etc etc is a published photo really such a big issue??????

**xecutable** · 25 September 2011, 4:12 am

I was intentionally trying to get my picture taken, and out of 300 pics I had none of me. Who do I sue

ha ha.

All kidding aside, as I see there are many people concerned about privacy, what do you suggest. That when a picture is taken, the photographer goes and asks every single individual if they want to be in it? Or tries to identifies everyone on it afterwards and smudge the ones that do not want to be in it?

I mean if I did not want to be in an image, would make sense to be angry and unhappy, but face it, there's not much that could be done. It would be MY problem and MY problem only being on a conference trying to avoid all cameras (something I did successfully

). I certainly wouldn't wanna bother someone doing their job, taking pictures and stuff.

The photography law seems pretty clear on this issue from legal aspect as well. This sounds a bit of a PR campaign, as unless you are top 1 affiliate in the industry, the chance the feds to go after GPWA first than you are pretty big, and that is if indeed something was going down in the US.

Let's not get paranoid and exaggerate. You can always politely and privately ask the staff to exclude you from future publication. You know it's funny you are so concerned about privacy that you published it in the PUBLIC section of the forum, viewable by everyone.

**Betpartners** · 25 September 2011, 5:04 am

Originally Posted by xecutable

I was intentionally trying to get my picture taken, and out of 300 pics I had none of me. Who do I sue

ha ha.

All kidding aside, as I see there are many people concerned about privacy, what do you suggest. That when a picture is taken, the photographer goes and asks every single individual if they want to be in it? Or tries to identifies everyone on it afterwards and smudge the ones that do not want to be in it?

I mean if I did not want to be in an image, would make sense to be angry and unhappy, but face it, there's not much that could be done. It would be MY problem and MY problem only being on a conference trying to avoid all cameras (something I did successfully

). I certainly wouldn't wanna bother someone doing their job, taking pictures and stuff.

The photography law seems pretty clear on this issue from legal aspect as well. This sounds a bit of a PR campaign, as unless you are top 1 affiliate in the industry, the chance the feds to go after GPWA first than you are pretty big, and that is if indeed something was going down in the US.

Let's not get paranoid and exaggerate. You can always politely and privately ask the staff to exclude you from future publication. You know it's funny you are so concerned about privacy that you published it in the PUBLIC section of the forum, viewable by everyone.

The US is not the only country where gambling or promoting gambling is illegal, thats the first point, secondly, the photographers and organisers KNOW that this industry is illegal in many parts of the world.

The conferences we attend are unlike many others and webmasters have the right not to have their pictures exposed by an organisation that should know better.

Yes, of course, if a daily newspaper turned up and took your photo then that is hard luck, but they do not, the photographers are from this industry and not from daily newspapers or such like.

Additionally, making a statement on here using a forum username is hardly the same as having your picture taken at an industry event.

Yes there are bigger issues in the world and this may well be minor, but that is totally beside the point, this industry is not legal worldwide and while webmasters are probably not going to be arrested, they may have their domains siezed or their websites closed down, that has happened in various European countries and the victims of this are far from being in the top 1%.

To assume that nothing can happen if the authorities get to know you is playing with fire, the authorities do act, they have acted, so why take the risk.

Personally I do not mind if my pic is taken, my sites are legal in a legal jurisdiction, I have nothing to fear, but the guy in Turkey or China or whatever country that has it illegal to promote gambling may not take such a view.

I really do not think that it is a very big ask for this industries media outlets to take extra care when publishing pictures, its a slippery road that may not effect the vast majority of us now, but who knows what the future holds.

**giggles7p** · 25 September 2011, 7:39 am

What if in the future all pics from conferences were published here, only? Have a thread for conference picks, then if a member see's a pic of themselves that they wish to be removed, all that needs to be done is delete, photoshop..etc...much safer and easier to deal with than a worldwide mailed magazine. Only a suggestion that would suffice everyone in the business, I would think. JMO

Pat

**Renee** · 25 September 2011, 6:16 pm

Originally Posted by I-Dave

LOL! Well, it is about this, but somehow when you do see so called affiliate managers or other self appointed industry figures totally drunk in these conferences, and er, maybe onto some other things, why would you want to be associated with that commercially, or any other way? How funny is it really? Then some of that comes on the gpwa proudly saying how they were completely mashed out, how fun it was. I think it shows what they truly are, pretty sad.

So I do my job (better than most people), don't walk around with my ass and tits hanging out (in the photo you can see well and good that I am fully clothed covering most of my body), I don't get plastered at these events (like you've just accused me of) and I spend MY OWN MONEY buying drinks for myself and other people, and you're putting **** on me coz I have a sense of humour?

Seriously.

**mojo** · 25 September 2011, 8:38 pm

Originally Posted by Renee

So I do my job (better than most people), don't walk around with my ass and tits hanging out (in the photo you can see well and good that I am fully clothed covering most of my body), I don't get plastered at these events (like you've just accused me of) and I spend MY OWN MONEY buying drinks for myself and other people, and you're putting **** on me coz I have a sense of humour?

Seriously.

Renee, I honestly don't think I dave was talking about you. AK may have been but not IDave.

It's a sad series of pictures and posts over the years. Re-read his post. It's an accumulation of 'professionals' getting drunk and then screaming about 'unprofessionals'. His post is 100% true and how many of us feel.

You do not fit in this category.

IMO.

You have always had a knack to mix fun and business in a really cool way.

**mojo** · 25 September 2011, 8:49 pm

I don't mind double posting.

You really DO do your job better than most people Renee.

**mojo** · 25 September 2011, 9:59 pm

Originally Posted by Betpartners

I almost never agree with Paula as she will confirm.

Really Martin?

I won't confirm. I thougt we agreed more than that. Ouch.

**I-Dave** · 28 September 2011, 9:18 am

Originally Posted by Renee

So I do my job (better than most people), don't walk around with my ass and tits hanging out (in the photo you can see well and good that I am fully clothed covering most of my body), I don't get plastered at these events (like you've just accused me of) and I spend MY OWN MONEY buying drinks for myself and other people, and you're putting **** on me coz I have a sense of humour?

Seriously.

Hey. I did not talk about you specifically, so no need to feel like justifying yourself with such anger - unless you really had to. I also have no idea why you say you work better than most, as we all know small groups here (or just a single casino or property) doing an outstanding job of their own, backed by their very own knowledge. I could not care less if you pay for your drinks or not (company expenses etc). That does not make a difference if one gets completely muttered anyhow. Could not care less as well as to what you show or not, really. I never called you or tarnished you with ''****'', these are your own words. A sense of humor is not displayed through mad alcohol consumption, no need to rope in others I think. So there.

**Betpartners** · 28 September 2011, 2:24 pm

Originally Posted by mojo

Really Martin?

I won't confirm. I thougt we agreed more than that. Ouch.

Ouch indeed

Maybe I should have said, we disagree more often than not in public over some of the big issues but regardless, it is nice to know that you feel we agree more than I thought, I for one am happy with that and stand corrected

**mojo** · 28 September 2011, 3:25 pm

Originally Posted by Betpartners

Ouch indeed

Maybe I should have said, we disagree more often than not in public over some of the big issues but regardless, it is nice to know that you feel we agree more than I thought, I for one am happy with that and stand corrected

It was my attempt at humor. I was actually disagreeing with you about disagreeing. lol

Always a pleasure martin.

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