BetaNews escapes EFront meltdown

Alive and kicking

By Drew Cullen • Get more from this author

Posted in e-Business, 19th April 2001 09:35 GMT

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BetaNews has emerged scathed but fighting fit following the meltdown of ad affiliate network EFront.

The software site is again posting articles, after a few weeks absence. Which is good news - it's a good site and it deserves to survive and thrive

But other eFront affiliates have not been so fortunate - two weeks ago, eFront's co-lo Web hosting supplier, Space4Rent, pulled the plug after the company failed to pay its bills.

This has left 200 Web sites scrambling to find new hosts. Trouble is, many are in debt because of eFront's inability to pay revenues on ad fees accrued on their behalf. Ownership of many URLs has also been taken by EFront which has in many cases, refused to return the domain names to the web site operators.

EFront.com

eFront's troubles began last year with the collapse of the US aonline advertising market. The company was beached between torched CPM rates and, in the light of deteriorating market conditions, unsustainable income commitments to its affiliates.

But what did it do? Instead of coming clean, in the manner of, say UGO, the company concocted a variety of bizarre and sometimes dishonest schemes to browbeat or con its Webmasters into accepting pay cuts.

Its increasingly desperate plans were revealed to the world on March 12, with the theft and publication on the Internet of CEO Sam Jain's IRC log files. Since then the company has been toast.

Jain, apparently, aims to resurrect EFront. But as what? Who'd work with such an ethically challenged man, who'd invest money into his company, who would advertise in any company run by him? ®