Ad upgrade extortion
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ad upgrade
This is extortion and it makes me furious. I’m already paying a hosting fee. Why on earth should I have to pay to OPT OUT Of ads? Or, anything. There should be an OPT IN “upgrade,” which would make it truly OPTIONAL. Otherwise, you are doing shoddy, shady, unethical business practices. I don’t care what it says in the “fine print” of our “agreement,” since everyone knows you corporations just do what you want.I’m disgusted.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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The policy change applies only to username ac counts registered after September 1st, 201 4. Your username account was registered on February 3, 2012 (2 years) and I’m tagging this thread for Staff assistance because you ought to be able to purchase the No-Ads upgrade individually.
In the future I suggest that rather than leaping to conclusions and posting rants when things don’t operate as you would like them to your simply ask for clarification and help.
Please subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond. Note there is a backlog so you will have to wait patiently for Staff help.
To subscribe:
1. Look in the sidebar of this thread and find the subscribe to topics link.
2. Or look below the comment box for this: _ Notify me of followup posts via e-mail -
Thanks for responding, despite your heavy-handed scolding attitude. I didn’t “leap” to any conclusions. A box appeared suddenly on my site today announcing “some readers may see ads here” and telling me to click to “learn more,” which I did. That is how I discovered that WP wants me to pay an additional $30 (basically DOUBLING my annual hosting fee!!!) just to AVOID (“opt out”) of having said ads.
I am author. I am unemployed. I am low-income. My brand is all I have. If random ads start appearing right on my site, it seems I have endorsed or, worse, am getting paid to post them, which is not true, and there is not recourse except to PAY, which I cannot do.
I have every right to rant because the email “support” is closed for another week. Meanwhile, what kinds of ads will start appearing????
Up until today, I have been quite content with WP.com, but I hate this. If I could afford it, I would immediately close my account and get another site. But, I cannot.
BTW: your account information is incorrect. I began paying for and using this site in August, 2013.
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I pay an annual fee to WP of $35 for my domain name. What is that for if not “hosting”? Or, am I wrong and I’m not paying WP? Who is getting that money, then?
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Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion
My response was derived from reading from what you posted and noting that you were ranting and alleging of extortion ie. a criminal offence! instead of asking for help. And take note that as I am a paralegal, who has put up with years of abuse from criminals, idiots on line and EMO forum drama queen my response could have been much stronger.
BTW: your account information is incorrect. I began paying for and using this site in August, 2013.
My statement is correct:
Your username account was registered on February 3, 2012 (2 years) and I’m tagging this thread for Staff assistance because you ought to be able to purchase the No-Ads upgrade individually.I repeat that in the future I suggest that rather than leaping to conclusions and posting rants when things don’t operate as you would like them to your simply ask for clarification and help.
I add that what your personal circumstances are are irrelevant and no one needs to read about them in any support forum thread. Playing the poverty card or the age card or the infirmity card is not recommended when one is posting for technical assistance, so do keep that in mind please.
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I pay an annual fee to WP of $35 for my domain name. What is that for if not “hosting”? Or, am I wrong and I’m not paying WP? Who is getting that money, then?
All blog hosted here are hosted free of charge. Domain mapping is however an upgrade. See here:
Registering a domain through WordPress.com starts at $18.00 per domain, per year (see below for a detailed price list)
Domain owners are required to share their contact information. The $8.00 Private Registration upgrade will protect your identity and hide your contact information.
Adding a domain you already own costs $13.00 per domain, per year.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/ -
What does this mean: ” to purchase the No-Ads upgrade individually”? Is this what WP wants to charge me $30 for? How else would I purchase that except “individually,” since I am an individual?
I’m ignoring all the rest because you’re just digging yourself in deeper. If you work for the “Happiness” department, you are an abject failure.
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I don’t work here. I am a Volunteer who is not paid a single cent to put up with those who choose to appear to be emotionally unstable and who allege that criminal offenses has occurred when they haven’t. Forum drama queens are a dime a dozen and this thread demonstrates your failure when it comes to conducting yourself online in a respectable, reasonable and business-like manner.
I’m sorry but Staff have a considerable backlog of threads tagged for their attention.They work through them in chronological order based on datestamps and timestamps by working their way forward from the earliest to the most recent.
How long it takes to clear the threads and support tickets depends on how many Happiness Engineers are working on them at any given point in time. It also depends on how complex the issues in each thread and ticket are are.
Please don’t bump your thread here again by continuing to post into it because it’s not in your best interest to post to it after it has been tagged for Staff help and prior to their response. Doing that moves the timestamps forward and it takes longer to get a response.
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I don’t care what it says in the “fine print” of our “agreement,” … there is not recourse except to PAY, which I cannot do. … Why on earth should I have to pay to OPT OUT Of ads?
You don’t have to pay for anything and Staff don’t need to respond to this thread.
WordPress.com has been displaying advertising on our blogs since 2006. As they do not display to us when we are signed in you may not have noticed them previously. The ToS section 10 that we agree to in order to get a blog states this, the features page states this, and so does the advertising entry in the support documentation but many bloggers do not read these. The bottom line is that if you do not wish to have advertising displaying on your blog you will have to purchase an annually renewable No-Ads upgrade.
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Probably covered above – but just in case – the Ads are how WordPress.COM can afford to provide you “free” hosting, you do pay for domain mapping, I assume domain registration etc. All upgrades here exactly what they are – no more no less –
The box you see about the ads was added several months ago to remind bloggers here that sometimes ads will show up on their site – the ads are not seen by logged in users, most people visit their site while logged in and thus never see the ads, and only find out about the ads when a friend mentions one they don’t like.
When the Ad box first appeared there were many bloggers that were not aware of the ads, since they had not read the Terms of Service or had forgotten the “fine print” as you referred to that section. And many of then were just as outraged as you are.
I personally have no ads on one of my sites and let WordPress.COM collect a pathetically small token amount on my cookie site and my history site.
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