More Cardspike Disclosures

Cake Poker proposal published - and a worrying hacking attempt The owner of the Gambling Portal Webmaster's Association, Michael Corfman, fired his latest meticulously annotated broadside this week against competitor Affiliate Media/ CAP/ PAP and the Effective Media Group, a company apparently owned separately by Affiliate Media top brass Lou Fabiano and Warren Jolly. Corfman has emerged as a probing voice for those affiliates who feel that the relationships between the Fabiano and Jolly commercial interests and a poker room on the Cake Poker network branded CardSpike may be questionable and a conflict of interest. The war of words started when CardSpike experienced affiliate payment problems, and has escalated with progressive disclosures by both sides (see previous InfoPowa reports). More recently it has been revealed that Effective Media is also involved with an online casino branded Absolute Slots. Corfman summarises the situation to date at http://www.gpwa.org/forum/dancing-around-truth-about-cardspike-178689.html and speculates on how an entity in the United States desirous of owning and operating an online gaming site could set about doing so in the context of the information available to date. He is also critical of the progressive disclosures by Affiliate Media which he claims show a clear pattern of "Affiliate Media acknowledging only what they understand can already be proven by others." And he hints that further revelations are imminent. Corfman goes on to discuss the possible conflicts in the relationships that have been established so far, and publishes a copy of a Cake Poker proposal to Casino Affiliate Programs to grant that organisation a licence without naming any brand. That has presumably been furnished by an insider and has been published by Corfman at www.gpwa.org/docs/CAP-Cake-Proposal.pdf. The statements made by both sides in this extraordinary and prolonged argument continue to develop an increasingly intriguing story, but this weekend the attacks on Affiliate Media expanded with another alarming accusation - this one of attempted hacking on poker affiliate information site owner Jeremy Enke, who offers the incidental opinion that he is not a fan of the ongoing industry drama. That position may change after his experiences this week, which started when he received a technical notification that an attempt - in fact five attempts using different passwords - had been made to hack into his account at Poker Affiliate Listings. Enke is sensitive to this sort of rogue behaviour, reminding his readers at http://www.pokeraffiliatelistings.com/forums/general-poker-affiliate-forum/1377-affiliate-media-trying-hack-pal.html that he has had previous experience of this sort of assault on his privacy and opinions. "Even when my account at PAP [Poker Affiliate Programs] was hacked and AMI executives posted on it pretending to be me, I kept my cool," Enke wrote. "But what just transpired really pisses me off, and I feel I should share with the group." Investigating the IP from whence the attempted hacking originated, Enke tracked the IP address 64.58.138.146 back to an account allegedly used by Affiliate Media personnel under the 'handle' Jarwl. Other, and independent reports, have apparently confirmed that the IP sourced back to Affiliate Media, from whom an explanation has yet to emerge. Proof that a person or persons within AMI could have been responsible for such a gross violation of ethics will undoubtedly cause concern among affiliates and programs alike, and a statement giving the AMI perspective on the incident is awaited by many who have watched the wider issues developing with not a little concern. Enke writes: "But what I don't understand is why they would attempt to login to my account here at PAL? Say what you want about "a staff member thought it would be funny" like Warren did when they jacked my PAP account. Fine, they own PAP. But trying to log in to my PAL account here 5+ times with what I assume are my old passwords from PAP stuff when I worked there...........this is shady."