
We got a takedown notice from LifeShield for our positive review - adulau
http://www.pskl.us/wp/?p=722
======
nicksergeant
LifeShield is a horrible company.

They've been a horrible company ever since their name changed from "InGrid". I
originally purchased my system when they were InGrid about 6 years ago.

When I bought my system, it was advertised that the system would work with or
without monitoring, which was a huge selling point for me. I wasn't sure if I
really cared about the monitoring or not, since alerts go directly to your
phone, email, etc. With those kinds of alerts, who needs someone else to call
the cops for you?

Anyway, so I invested in the system mostly for this reason. The InGrid site
was great and the support staff was friendly and helpful - I always ended up
talking to the same person and it was a nice experience. So I dumped a good
$600 into sensors, cameras, etc.

Fast-forward a few years and InGrid changes their name to LifeShield - I don't
know if this was an acquisition or a brand change or what, but it brought on a
slew of bad experiences. The support staff started sounding cold and
uninterested. The website started going to shit, it was impossible to find
things (try finding the online control panel to your system - that thing has
changed URLs / names at least 5 times).

But the two worst things: a few months ago, they raised my monitoring rates
with _no_ notification whatsoever. I saw my monthly charge come in $5 higher
than it used to be. Obviously not a ton of money but I'd like to know why I'm
paying $60 more per year for the exact same service. I called them up and they
said "Well our rates are now different for those who aren't on a contract with
us. If you'd like to go back to your normal rate, you'll need to sign a 3-year
contract with us." What, The, Fuck. I don't want a contract, especially not
with a company who randomly decides to raise rates of their longest customers
without notification.

So I decided to shut off the system monitoring. When I did so, to my horror I
found that the entire system was bricked. The control panel says "Not
Activated". They've once again fucked me, going back on their original
statement that the hardware would work without monitoring.

So I'm done with them. They're a shitty company who's gone down the toilet
over the past few years.

From the article here one of the LifeShield reps said they took a huge hit to
their business because of some random clone on the web... that's probably
bullshit. They're taking a huge hit to their business because of their shady
business practices and lackluster product offerings.

~~~
nicksergeant
To add to LifeShield's shady practices, it looks like most of their Twitter
followers are spam accounts that they've created to boost their followers:
<https://twitter.com/#!/lshomesecurity/followers>

Every follower has no bio, around 10-15 "follows" and about 1,500-1,800
followers. All generic photos, generic usernames, names, etc.

What a fucking joke this company is.

~~~
epoxyhockey
You are correct, sir: <http://i.imgur.com/Ytf9b.png>

EDIT: The flat lines are the fake followers..

~~~
dakotasmith
Mind sharing the code that generated this?

I am not the only person on HN who might like to have a way to examine
real/presumedfake follower ratios for any number of reasons.

~~~
epoxyhockey
I would setup a webservice for it, but Twitter's API only allows 300 queries
per hour. Just get the list of follower IDs via the API, sort them, then plot
the deltas between each ID.

Most _Twitter follower networks_ registered thousands of Twitter accounts in a
quick, automated fashion, making their entire list of Twitter ID's almost
sequential. The plot shows the deltas of the Twitter IDs from 0 to the highest
ID.

What's even more amusing is that, once you've identified a network, you can
deduce the entire list of their clients by what users the network already
follows.

Part of me wonders why Twitter doesn't just nuke the follower networks, since
they are so easy to identify. But, on the other hand, it's almost comical
looking at no-name Twitter users with tens of thousands of followers. There is
no way to force a Twitter network to unfollow them, so they are stuck with the
fake followers and all of the embarrassment that comes along with it.

Though, the scary part is that one can attack an adversary by buying up 25K
Twitter followers for them for a pretty insignificant price (maybe $100).

~~~
zedadex
> Though, the scary part is that one can attack an adversary by buying up 25K
> Twitter followers for them for a pretty insignificant price (maybe $100).

If that kind of attack became well-known, the next logical step would be that
a smart company buys some fake followers, then protests against it as though
to imply that one of their competitors did so.

Slandering a rival while reaping additional followers (though fake...) seems
like a win-win.

------
galenward
Here's the likely real story: LifeShield bought tens of thousands of links to
improve their SEO (made sense on a 6-basis, less sense on a 2-3 year basis)
and got hit hard by a recent update.

I helped a company a few years ago that had paid a consultant to purchase tens
of thousands of links. The way they did it was by buying one of three slots on
a few different freely-downloadable wordpress and forum themes.

The problem with buying links like this is that once they're purchased, they
are out of your control (buying links is pretty much always a bad idea, but
10x more so like this).

Yes, competitors could have bought tens of thousands of links, but let's apply
Occam's Razor here:

\- Did an angry competitor spends a ton of money on the off chance that they
can swamp LifeShield an SEO penalty (risky - could go the other way)

OR

\- Did a company that has purchased tons of spammy Twitter followers
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3970998>) and pay referral fees to
people who review their products (and link to them) also buy tons of spammy
links?

~~~
Geewhipped
Thank you for being the one to toss this out there... I also feel this is a
strong possibility but I didn't want to be the one to say it.

------
kabdib
The home security industry is, in general, horribly manipulative. They make
money on fear and customer lock-in (subscriptions). As such there appears to
be little pressure to adopt advances in tech, to cost-reduce, or to make
things easy and friendy for end-users. The systems are complex and baroque,
and there is a reason for it.

There's probably room for disruption here. I imagine a lot of the roadblocks
to this will be regulatory, such as if you integrate fire alarm systems or
devices that are hooked to phone lines.

The two weekends I spent wiping, reverse-engineering and reconfiguring an old
ADT installation really made me want to design boards and write firmware
again.

~~~
larrys
"probably room for disruption here. I imagine a lot of the roadblocks to this
will be regulatory"

Sensors --> Control Panel --> App|Txt Message

An opportunity for sure. I own two of these Elk Gold Panels:

[http://www.elkproducts.com/product-catalog/m1-gold-cross-
pla...](http://www.elkproducts.com/product-catalog/m1-gold-cross-platform-
control)

Complete with <http://www.ekeypad.net/eK_Family/Applications.html> software
you can essentially cut out the online monitoring and phone lines and simply
do everything over the internet. So I don't pay anything for monitoring.

You could actually easily write your own software since the M1 spits out codes
in real time and responds to commands that you can send over ssh. Anyway the
way I have this setup I can be notified of any event (say even someone walks
into and trips a motion sensor) by an email or text message. You could even do
a phone call or notify multiple people. And you can remotely turn on and turn
off zones, the system, and fully program this to do just about anything.

There isn't anything magical Elk is doing. And I've spoken to their top tech
guy and he didn't even know how to troubleshoot an SMTP problem. I would
imagine a good kickstarter project could easily duplicate the same hardware
functionality.

The security vendor of course pushed the monitoring. I have some experience in
that business so I didn't feel that I needed a central station. I just wanted
to be notified. You can easily integrate any types of controllers with this
(like an X10) and video cameras etc.

Bottom line: There are tons of people with legacy alarm systems. Even just a
hardware device that sat on the existing analog POTS line and sent the signals
over the Internet to a place that would then send a txt message to a users
phone would be a good place to start.

~~~
DavidAdams
+1 on the Elk M1 Gold. If you're a hacker, you should definitely buy the
haker's security system. You can then choose what kind of monitoring you'd
like. I go with a local independent security monitoring company that costs
about $8 per month. You can also set it up for self-monitoring. I wrote a
review of the Elk M1 a while back:
[http://www.osnews.com/story/22206/Building_the_Wired_Home_El...](http://www.osnews.com/story/22206/Building_the_Wired_Home_Elk_M1_Home_Security_System)

~~~
larrys
Great article. I ended up having to buy a laptop PC because you can't run the
Elk software for config on a Mac under boot camp etc.

One thing to point out to anyone using a security company to install this. My
installer left the system password less and you could telnet into it. In his
mind he thought he had secured it. Simply going outside our network and using
telnet you could get right in though which is how I checked what he said (he
didn't know enough to do that). I'd imagine there are quite a few of these
open ports right now out there.

------
droithomme
It was an interesting article until near the end when the author dropped that
he was angry because this other company wasn't paying him referral fees they
promised in exchange for his good reviews of their product, which from some of
the discussion here sounds like there is a consensus is bad products. This
suggests that the reviewer was writing false reviews because doing so earned
him money, and recasts the rest of the article into the category of "two con
artists trying to out con each other".

~~~
zachallaun
Comments like this are always particularly frustrating to me, as it suggests
that you did not actually read the article, and are now trying to prevent
others from reading it based on your impression.

The company had a referral system in place such that 5 referrals meant the
referrer obtained free LifeShield monitoring for life. Why would someone slant
a review such that they could get a bad product for free?

It was much later that LifeShield announced a new program that gave $150 for
each referral; this was a good while after the review of the product.

~~~
droithomme
Your comment is frustrating to me also as it is obvious that I did read the
entire article.

------
wheaties
Wow, I had no idea that you could pay someone to put in bogus links to a
competitor in order to cause Google to penalize their page ranking. That's
pretty shady but is it a "all is fair in love and war" type thing or is
someone going to do something about this? I can totally see an organization
pressuring people for pay-offs to "protect" them from certain sites.

Is this already happening?

~~~
sasha-dv
Although Matt Cutts claims that this is an algorithm change and does not
involve any human review of individual websites - this is not true. They went
after specific guys who sold links on their splog farms, but those who didn't
are up and running. A lot of people who hired "SEO experts" were burned just
because the expertise of those "experts" was buying links on said splog farms.

The thing is that google's algorithm looks like this
(<http://imgur.com/XxhZg>) and the real "SEO experts", the black hat guys, run
circles around it. If you doubt that just look at the results of your search
queries. See any spam?

I've built a blog in 2005 which I basically abandoned in 2007. That blog was
scraped and its content republished by a few BH guys who didn't bothered to
remove links pointing to my original blog which resulted that today my blog
has over 75% of its links coming from the splog farms. I'm not talking about a
few links here and there. I have over 40000 of those and yet I have no
warnings in GWMT and the blog ranks #1 for its main keyword.

If you're running an online business avoid hiring "SEO experts", they are not
just useless they are dangerous.

So, how can you get hurt by some asshole?

First, he can buy links on the splog farms already penalized by google.
Second, he can create extremely transparent splog farm and link to your site.
(by transparent I mean autogen content, no keyword variations in anchor text,
trackback spam, ...) Third, he can just "xrumer blast" you out of google
index.

I believe that the approach google took recently will get a lot of small
business (and webmasters) hurt, but it will have almost no effect on black
hatters. Why? Because, with all being said and done, the only thing that
really counts in SEO is the number of links and the BH guys are masters at
creating those. (see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb>)

Google screwed it up big time by making negative SEO possible, but I doubt
they'll change their approach. I doubt that they even care about it.

~~~
derleth
> look at the results of your search queries. See any spam?

Not in my queries, no.

~~~
silverbax88
I'll bet you don't even realize it's spam. Do a search for something like
'water heater reviews' and several of those links on the front page will
ultimately send you to an affiliate site or zip submit. Spam.

~~~
derleth
> I'll bet you don't even realize it's spam.

This is so condescending it's amazing. You're calling me an idiot, you know
that, right?

------
brockf
It's funny in a discussion of ethics to end with a sidenote about how the
author wasn't making any money off paid referrals from his (inflated?)
positive review of the system.

~~~
Geewhipped
I can see how you'd think that, but I thought it should be included (because
it lends more to the story of how they are being shady). The way I see it, we
entered into an agreement with the referral program. They didn't honor their
side of it. That's unethical. As for the review itself, I made it very, very
clear that my links were referral links. I also made it clear that I was
benefiting from the referrals (this was true of both of the referral
programs). People could choose to believe that I was being honest or choose to
believe that I was a shill. No trickery involved.

~~~
brockf
I do appreciate that. It's just that I, as a rule of thumb, take reviews from
stakeholders with a grain of salt.

~~~
Geewhipped
As do I :)

------
karnajani
I understand that LifeShield may not be a popular company, and that their rep
was totally in the wrong in this matter. But the level of outrage shown by
Jeremy is just ludicrous. They apologized several times over and explained
that they were dealing with cranking out a job under extremely tight deadlines
(something we should all be familiar with) and managed to screw up.

The 4-5 instances of apologies, retraction of threat, and admittance of error
should have been enough. But it seems like OP felt so entitled to being
treated like a 5-star customer that he had to complain till he was spent.

~~~
Geewhipped
Sorry if I didn't make this clear in the blog post, but the part I'm most
upset about is not that _I_ got the takedown notices... it's that they are
using bogus takedown notices at all. Read the emails between me and the "SVP
Interactive" at LifeShield and also with the rep from the IP Protection
company (who admits that I'm right, the takedowns are bogus). I'm not whining
about being inconvenienced.

Oh, and it isn't that they "managed to screw up" ... they completely own up to
what they've done (and continue to do). They know it's wrong, but decided to
keep doing it because it was getting results. All this was covered in the blog
post.

Also, I'm nowhere near spent.

~~~
DanBC
Why don't you just copy the EFF into your emails?

(<https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/IP>)

~~~
Geewhipped
We did submit the text of the takedown notice to chillingeffects.org fwiw

------
AznHisoka
A commenter already mention this. Lots of companies got hit really hard from
the Penguin update because of bad links pointing to them. So I'm not surprised
they're being overly aggressive about this.

Speaking of the Penguin update, I'm surprised and quite disappointed it hasn't
been talked about in HN. It affects a lot of consumer web startups. Anyone who
has a website basically should be concerned.

~~~
TomGullen
I'm not concerned, I'm happy. Google are penalising junk websites.

~~~
AznHisoka
Yes, and in the process also taking out innocent websites as well. This isn't
an algorithm update against "bad" websites. It's an algorithm update that
negatively affects websites that fit a certain pattern - and you can fit that
pattern without even being shady.

For example, if someone doing negative SEO by blasting 10,000 bad, spammy
links pointing to your website - the penguin update penalizes your site. Even
if your site is about helping cancer patients, or feeding Africa.

------
Jem
I've seen it mentioned in the Terms of Use of certain companies (thinking
Fox.com) that people are not allowed to link to the company website going back
to the 90s, but I've never actually seen anyone try to enforce that.

I don't know whether I find it scary or hilarious.

eta: the Fox terms haven't changed much: "If you are interested in creating
hypertext links to the Site, you must contact Company at terms@fox.com before
doing so."

~~~
DanBC
There have been some UK cases about embedding other people's content in frames
and deep linking.

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_linking>)

------
veverkap
Does the white font on black background mixed with the opposite style in the
quotes hurt anyone else's eyes? I'm seeing ghosts now.

~~~
ars
No, that's my preferred kind of text. It's a relief to read a site like that,
most aren't so kind to my eyes.

The reverse colors of quotes is very easy to understand (although if it was me
I would have used white text with a slightly gray background and a white
border).

If you are seeing ghosts your monitor may be too bright for the amount of
light in the room around you.

------
RyanMcGreal
I'm a little bit concerned about the moral hazard of a reviewer who can earn
money from referrals after posting a product review.

~~~
wpietri
Yes. There's good reason that actual journalists don't take money from review
subjects.

------
rwhitman
Based on the fact that his review was using a referral link (mentioned at the
end) I wouldn't be surprised the 700k "bad links" were probably doing the same
for similar reasons. Google likely regarded most of their backlinks as
affiliate spam. This sounds fishy from every angle

------
Tichy
To me the scary part is that links might be unwanted because of search engine
penalties. Since social connections probably factor into those, you can become
a pariah rather quickly - nobody wants your links, and nobody will link to you
-> vicious circle.

------
monochromatic
> When I originally wrote my reviews of the LifeShield products and services
> (March, 2010), they had a referral system in place. If I got 5 referrals,
> I’d get free security system monitoring for life. They provided a link to
> give to possible customers. I used it all over my reviews.

I don't understand how you can complain about unethical business practices in
the same post that you admit to this.

~~~
dangrossman
"Admit to this" as if sales commissions are something shady?

> I made it very, very clear that my links were referral links. I also made it
> clear that I was benefiting from the referrals (this was true of both of the
> referral programs). People could choose to believe that I was being honest
> or choose to believe that I was a shill. No trickery involved.

~~~
droithomme
It's interesting but mysterious that you would bring up sales commissions here
as that is a very different scenario.

(A)

I go to the Ford dealer to buy a truck. The salesman, Frank, is on commission.
He tells me that Fords are the best trucks and when I ask about Dodge, he says
their trucks are badly designed, dangerous, and lack power.

(B)

I then go to the Dodge dealer to buy a truck. The salesman, Don, is on
commission. He tells me that Dodges are the best trucks and when I ask about
Ford, he says their trucks are badly designed, dangerous, and lack power.

(C)

I then check in with someone who is a truck expert, Tom. He points out that
one of the brands is much better than the other based on his personal
experiences.

What is the difference between A, B and C? Are one's expectations about the
objectivity of the data different between an interaction with Frank and Don
who are clearly identified themselves as professional sales agents whose
primary vocation is profiting from each sale that they negotiate with a
customer? What are the expectations here and how are they different with a
customer getting information from an independent reviewer versus a salesperson
who is known not to be an impartial and independent reviewer?

What would the response be of most people, after buying Brand T of truck, and
finding it to be a lemon, to discovering that impartial expert Tom was
actually receiving commissions or free products from the company or companies
whose products he recommended?

What I am saying here is not mysterious or bizarre feats of stretching
reasoning to its limits, but just absolute common sense that everyone is
familiar with. People know that a salesman working professionally at a car
dealer is not an unbiased source of information. No one is completely shocked
when it turns out he exaggerated or flat out lied to get his commission, for
unethical behavior for profit is common in the sales avocation. This is why
people turn to independent, impartial reviewers, and expect them to have
actual experience with the product, to voice their true opinion, and not to be
receiving kickbacks, presents, or special considerations from the company's
whose products they review.

~~~
dangrossman
Straw-man straw-man straw-man. Jeremy disclosed his relationship with the
company, on the reviews and personally by e-mail with each and every referral.
"Tom" did not.

There's nothing unethical about this. There's no mystery here.

We don't shun realtors as unethical when they recommend a mortgage broker to
get you prequalified with, a contractor for a home inspection, etc. that are
no doubt paying them referral fees.

We even purposely go to independent agents to shop around for insurance
policies, when we know they're compensated purely by their commissions from
the companies they'll place you with. There are 40,000 independent insurance
agencies in the US -- that are in business because people specifically turn to
them for advice while EXPECTING them to receive kickbacks from the companies
they're giving advice on.

We also read reviews in magazines containing ads by the companies being
reviewed. We watch news coverage on channels running ads by the companies
talked about in the news. There are clearly other ways to establish reputation
and trust than separating yourself from compensation.

