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Studiotraffic was a "get-paid autosurf" site which was launched in late 2003 by an unknown person, going by the name of John Horan. It paid its users to watch advertisements every day. For each day that its users watched the required number of advertisements, they got paid 1% of their account level - for example, if they had a $100 account level, they got paid $1 each day they watched the advertisements. All users started out with a free $10 account level, and they could purchase upgrades to increase their account level up to a maximum of $80,000. The rules later changed, allowing users to have only one account, and to earn a maximum of $21,000 per month. On March 29, 2006 the last version of the Studiotraffic.com website was still active and listed the following figures for member fees and number of total members:〔(Web Archive Project saved last day of Studiotraffic.com (March 29, 2006) )〕 - Total Membership Fees to Date $ 20,021,560 - Total Studio Traffic Members 395,547 Studiotraffic is now defunct; its domain names have been taken over by MyFileHut.com. Many of its former members found themselves almost bankrupt as the site shut down without prior warning. The owner of the site disappeared and has not been heard from since. ==Criticism== There have been accusations about Studiotraffic being a ponzi scheme. Practically this would mean Studiotraffic did not gain much revenue from its other programs and advertising, but that the payments came from new investors ('upgraders'). There is no certain data about this as it is impossible to know how many people bought advertising credits or banner ads from Studiotraffic. Studiotraffic refuted this accusation and pointed out that they did not have to rely on upgrade fees to pay their members because they use the proceeds from their other online businesses to supplement their payout fund. They had their own web radio station, an on-line shop, and a web hosting business among other revenue-generation programs. Studiotraffic U.S. did not seem to be able to pay off the monthly withdrawals, and Horan stated that if and when the United States becomes too much of a burden, he will have to close off the US section of Studiotraffic. In November, US members' accounts were blocked from surfing for "in-profit" members whilst all accounts were audited. In December the same occurred with UK accounts. From January 2006, members of Studiotraffic in the UK who wish to keep earning money are required to join "sales teams" or contribute in some other way to avoid losing their accounts. Horan stated publicly that the UK was selected for reasons of poor member contribution, rudeness to staff and lack of profitability. Members from all countries were encouraged to donate to a fund called the Global Advertising Campaign (GAC), essentially asking members to contribute to Studiotraffic. GAC states that a percentage of the money members earn must be returned to help Studiotraffic. In March 2006, after months of uncertainty, with many members being forced to surf in the hope that they will one day be allowed to earn money again, the issue of Studiotraffic's validity has more or less been solved by outside influences. In February of that year, the payment processor, StormPay, started freezing accounts of organisations it regarded as contrary to its own trading model. Whether this was justified or merely a subterfuge to cover StormPay's own lack of liquidity is another matter. StormPay members had to sit back and watch the processor seize their funds, charging them back in an arbitrary manner to where they saw fit. Eventually, Studiotraffic was affected; with their own StormPay accounts frozen and unable to even see the state of their accounts, the top management resigned. Contributing to Studiotraffic failing was also the emergence of many other Autosurf programs offering a high return which competed for members spends/upgrading dollars. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Studiotraffic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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