AGLOCO is certainly NOT a classic pyramid scheme

We have been hearing a lot over the last few days about the upcoming launch of AGLOCO, short for ‘a global community’. I checked out some pre-launch blogs and am kind of surprised at what is being said at the moment. I got to sign in as a pre-launch member and had the opportunity to have a look at the site.

It looks pretty straightforward to me. Certainly this is NOT a pyramid scheme as some online news articles have suggested. Members get paid, not the other way round….it seems pretty hard to have a classic pyramid scheme if everyone gets paid and no one puts money in…

Come to think about it, Google, Yahoo and the others are begging us to download their so-called toolbars. What are we getting out of that?

Once you download and install Google’s stuff as part of your browser, you’re stuck with it – and worse it is really spyware. They collect your info – and I would question their privacy – they know your habits and preferences, use it all to sell ads….and who gets the money from that? Certainly not me or you.

AGLOCO is saying your preferences should be used by you to generate preferences for you, and you should at least get a fair share of the value created. Sounds more than fair to me, especially since we’re not getting anything at the moment. What’s more, if you don’t want the viewbar to run at any point, you just have to minimize it and it stops running. How’s that for keeping control of your computer and online experience?

As for privacy, well Ray Everett-Church is on their team. I read his wikipedia page This is the guy Fortune 500 companies call up to help them design their internet privacy policies. This is the guy who has testified before the Senate, and Congress. This is the guy the U.S. government calls up to see whether legislation being drafted is in line with online privacy. I am definitely more re-assured about the privacy of my info knowing this expert is on their team rather than anyone else out there collecting my data.

Some blogs are suggesting this is just a new and huge spamming ploy. Once again I think their having Ray Everett-Church is major point. AGLOCO seems to have the toughest anti-spam policy of any network. You spam – you’re out. It may not stop everyone. – But since AOL already reports that over 50% of ALL emails sent to AOL members are spam, I hardly think a couple of bad apples (who will be thrown out) make the whole system bad – even wikipedia suffers from being vandalized.

Finally some are saying that only those who get in early will benefit from the network. Fair enough, I got to be a pre-launch member and so I will be able to benefit upfront. However, they have purposefully limited the number of referral levels to five, so as to allow anyone on the internet to build their own network. Pretty fair and justified to me....

So in essence, what does anyone have to lose in this? Absolutely nothing it seems. What can we get out of it? Think about it….if this community grows into the millions, we can go back to those advertisers, search engines, social networks and online retailers who are craving for our business, and make sure that whatever deal is made, each and every individual AGLOCO member gets a share of it.

And to make it better, the members own the company. Which start-up offers you cash and the company for basically continuing to do what we are already doing online?


Frankly, I think some people out there need to think and do a little more research about what they are writing about….