Empornium: Targetpoint Sold Us Out!
Written by Ernesto on July 13, 2006In our previous posts about Targetpoints involvement Empornium.us we never got to hear the story from Emporniums former admins. The Israeli advertising company denied that it owns or bought Empornium. This motivated one of Emporniums former admins to contact TorrentFreak to tell their side of the story.
Let’s correct something first. Targetpoint confirmed yesterday that they indeed were interested in buying Meganova about a year ago, like we reported three months ago. This makes is likely that the statements of the two other torrentsite admins, who told me that they were asked by Targetpoint if they were willing to sell there site are true as well.
Most site owners were offered a fixed sum of money and a percentage of the future ad revenue on top of that. Similar to the proposition the made to Meganova.
Moreover, this recent confession makes me wonder what’s really going on at Empornium. Let’s ask a former Empornium admin…
TorrentFreak: Is there, to your knowledge some kind of ownership agreement between Targetpoint and Emporniums former owner Sazaraki?
Emp admin: To the best of my knowledge, yes.
TorrentFreak: What is the nature of this contract?
Emp admin: The rough outline was, the contract would call for a couple of lump sum cash payments by Targetpoint, with the last bit paid upon transfer of the domain name. Sazaraki was to remain on for some time as head admin to smooth the transition. He intended to use the cash payment to pay for professional development of new site code. At the time these negotiations were taking place, Jan-Feb 05, the site was dying under the strain of the large number of users — load times were slow, timeouts were common, and staff were spending many hours every day simply manually correcting user’s stats because the tracker was timing out on them. The contract called for Saz to continue to receive a share of the ad revenue for the next year, for a token monthly payment to hand out to staff, and for Targetpoint to pay the salary for a professional backend sysop of Saz’s choosing. It also called for Sazaraki and the original admin team to retain access to the boxes and 100%
editorial control during this 1 year period.
After an initial payment was made and the domain was transferred, Targetpoint proposed changing the deal. The deal essentially remained the same, but Targetpoint was to become an investor, rather than buy the site outright. The only significant changes were that they would not pay another cash payment, it was now a permanent partnership rather than an ownership transition, and Targetpoint agreed to pay for a professional site development house of saz’s choosing to improve Empornium, rather than have us build a new site.
TorrentFreak: How much money is involved, and who paid the money?
Emp admin: The money was payed by Or Kunztman, CEO of Targetpoint. As far as the amouunt of the monthly minimum that he was paid, I don’t feel it’s my place to say.
TorrentFreak: Who is in control of the site at this very moment?
Emp admin: I’m sure today it’s just as it was last week. Or Kuntzman and Targetpoint control the money, Oded makes the day to day decisions, Arjan (aka Noos) does the tech stuff.
This is supported by the list of admins on empornium.us
TorrentFreak: What made you decide to leave emporium?
Emp admin: The admins realized last year, shortly after the deal was made, that they were not living up to their end of the agreement. We were constantly having Arjan login to our boxes doing stuff without permission… like that whole “Piratebay Moderated Network” banner that caused such a controversy… Slipping in more and more obtrusive Targetpoint ads, which he wasn’t supposed to do without Saz’s approval.
TorrentFreak: Do you know why he put The Piratebay banner up?
Emp admin: No. At the time there was speculation that it was a “google bomb” … that they were trying to steal hits from TPB when people searched on google, they’d hit on Empornium and draw more eyeballs to Targetpoint’s ads… but that’s just speculation. I have no personal knowledge of their involvement with TPB
Emp admin (continues):
So they weren’t paying the monthly payments, weren’t hiring the professionals they had promised. we knew they were screwing us. So some of us started development work on Cheggit.net. We hung around because we were never in this for the money, we got into this for the community, and the money was intended to improve the site because it was dying under the load it had grown so big. If we had left at that time, we would’ve been box-banned and that would’ve been the end of that community. So we swallowed our pride and did Targetpoint’s gruntwork while simultaneously working on cheggit.net. We knew a day would come when we couldn’t stomach it anymore, we just didn’t know when, and we hoped we would have a new working site before that day came.
Then they’re new site rollout happened
We had a working beta site on Cheggit… not perfect yet, but the nuts and bolts were there, we knew we were close… just adding on the non-essentials … the “pretty stuff”. And there was Sazaraki’s reaction to the whole new “pay to signup” site rollout that the rest of us had to consider. Sazaraki got fed up, abandoned ownership of the IRC channel, logged out of Empornium and told us he was quitting. Despite Arjan’s claims, we did not do any attacking on Empornium, the rest of what happened was the user’s reaction. We have a loyal community. Targetpoint never understood that.
TorrentFreak: How many of the original staff members are still at emporium?
Emp admin: Save for Saz, who is bound by his contract, ALL of the original Empornium staff, mods and admins alike, were a part of the development and/or beta of the new site, and all of us have left.
TorrentFreak: Thanks.
The nature of the contract described by this former Empornium admin is similar to the one offered to Meganova. Although Targetpoint officially denies that they have an ownership agreement with empornium.
TorrentFreak contacted Targetpoint and they responded with the fillowing statement:
Its very simple. Targetpoint do not own in any way Empornium.us. We never owned it and we shall never will. Targetpoint only connection to Empornium was advertising business relations. No more.
Previously: International Pro Piracy Collaboration Launched
Next: The Pig and the Box
18 Responses
[quote="noosius"]hey tna’ers :)
The statement that targetpoint owns puretna and will become a paysite is just laughable. [b]I own puretna and no one else[/b], of course some tried to make claims to this in the past ;) (mr pink). [b]And for imagefap, that site is run by an old torrent site admin whom i’m personally befriended with and fully support but has nothing to do with targetpoint at all.[/b]
Regards
noos[/quote]
[quote="p2p from his SmutPeddlars forum post and TorrentFreak interview"][b]ArJan Wijnveen. What can I say about Noos?[/b] Is he a Targetpoint employee? I don’t believe so. Oded once told me that Noos works for “us” as a contractor, doing the back-end work on many of their sites. That would explain why they would want to keep him happy by buying TnA for him. I like to think of him as Oded’s brain, which really isn’t saying very much, because Noos is not that bright. But Oded is truly an imbecile. Just witness how he has managed this whole situation with Empornium. Oded certainly doesn’t know anything about running servers. Noos probably is some kind of contract employee of Oded and/or Targetpoint.
So, as you can see from what i’ve written here, former Empornium staff are on record as calling both Arjan and Oded liars on many occasions, including with regard to who is currently principle owner. At this point, second-hand googled information is about as reliable as anything that they might tell you directly. [/quote]
So, we have noos as the admin here who says he owns this site and nobody else. Also states that Imagefap is a old admin friend of his.
p2p names noos as Arjan Wijnveen.
Imagefap Whois Info:
[code]
Registrant:
Arjan Wijnveen
Aalberselanen 7
Woerden
Utrecht
3445 TA
NL
Domain Name: imagefap.com
Administrative Contact:
Arjan Wijnveen (AW00022-TR)
Aalberselanen 7
Woerden
Utrecht
3445 TA
NL
phone: +31620420622
fax:
Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source
Technical Contact:
Arjan Wijnveen (AW00022-TR)
Aalberselanen 7
Woerden
Utrecht
3445 TA
NL
phone: +31620420622
fax:
Whois Privacy and Spam Prevention by Whois Source
Record updated on 11-Feb-2006
Record expires on 04-Feb-2007
Record created on 04-Feb-2006
Domain servers in listed order:
dns-eu1.powerdns.net 213.244.168.217
dns-eu2.powerdns.net 212.72.55.217 [/code]
Arjan Wijnveen owns Imagefap.
A little internet search and we come across this linkjing a Arjan Wijnveen to a site named http://www.noos.demon.nl in 2004
http://pcwin.com/software/review.asp?ProgramID=4504
So here we have a Arjan Wijnveen who happens to have a link to a site noos.demon
http://pcwin.com/software/review.asp?ProgramID=4504
Then we have this taken from Empornium.us
This shows us noos and odeddaniel as EMP ADMINS once the emp staff is locked out of the site once it has become a pay site.
Daniel Oded works for TargetPoint as explained here:
http://rixstep.com/1/20060708,00.shtml
and here
And here is noos.
Taken from another internet search. link
So, to sum it up we have an Admin at TnA named noos that states he and only he owns PureTnA and an Old Torrent Site Admin friend runs Imagefap. However we have a man identified as Arjan Wijnveen as noos as the registered owner of Imagefap. We have a google search of a programmer named Arjan Wijnveen who created a program to grab media files from video games back in 2004 who posted the link to grab his program at http://www.noos.demon.nl We have EMP Admins who name Arjan Wijnveen and Daniel Oded as their main contacts for dealing with Targetpoint. We have the new admins at emp as “noos” and “odeddaniel” Daniel Oded works for TargetPoint.
WOW! JUST WOW! “TheTruth” had too much time on their times.
What kind of loser like this “TheTruth” character wastes their life digging up this kind of shit over a fcuking PORN tracker? So what if this noos is a liar? Look at the real world buddy and see how much lying/spin doctoring goes on EVERY day over MORE IMPORTANT matters. Oh yes, you’re too busy digging up unimportant crap like this, downloading porn all day, and fapping your brains out to notice.
If people like you dedicated the energy wasted whining and digging up UNIMPORTANT details to things that did matter, maybe the world would be a better place.
bahahaha… what kind of loser get’s upset and responds to about 15 minutes of what googling someone will pull up?
Either someone who:
A. Has more time on his hands and energy to waste than you
B. Someone who feels you’re getting way too close to the truth
Seems pretty sound detective work to me… Maybe I should pay this Arjan bloke a visit, you know, make some friendly conversation, since he lives a walking distance from here. And it looks like he ruined my favorite porn tracker.
For the record, I’m the non-violent type, I really just want to talk with the guy, see what makes him tick.
Maybe check out his new wheels, or have a few drinks together, tho I’m not buying, obviously.
TnA is owned by targetpoint.. found this goin thru some irc logs
Session Start: Wed May 10 00:00:00 2006
Session Ident: #empornium
[18:12] * Hottorren (~oded@IGLD-84-228-78-76.inter.net.il) has joined #empornium
[19:47] noos is my admin in TNA
[19:47] and he is cool
[19:47] and doing a good jov
[19:47] job
[19:47] and all love him
As my title states, it is undeniable that Noos is one Arjan Wijnveen from the Netherlands. The googling of the names will reveal a history of Noos, just as [b]TheTruth[/b] has laid out.
One correction to TheTruth’s post, Noos did his early “gamework” around 1997 and on.
Noos started out by writing data extracters from video games, namely a program called [i]Search & Extract[/i] which raped the images and video files from popular games of that time.
Noos later on did programming (and promotion) for a Polish based company called Project2 which developed the title [i]Reah:Face the Unknown[/i]. Project2 had a few other titles, but apparently went bankrupt sometime in 1998.
The history of Noos gets a little fuzzy after that, until sometime in 2002 where he is shown promoting his skillsets online. Noos published his resume at 30 Euros an hour.
There is another gap until the controversy surrounding TargetPoint came to be. To those who call Noos an idiot, I doubt it. He was someone with a special gift in his field and was taking it on the road.
The photo of him at TinTel as a programmer was soon found. TinTel is an online money processing Company through various means (CC, Phone, Checks, etc.) I am sure he picked up valuable information into this area, and that maybe the showcase he needed. He disappeared from TinTel somewhere around April of 2006 and reappeared as “contractor” for TargetPoint via Or Kuntzman.
After the departure in April 2006, Noos is at the helm of PTNA and Empornium. He is the “go to” guy for money payouts at ImageFap. Noos is definitely at the server controls here, and definitely is behind the bidding of his masters. Why? Because he is now in a position he can only dream of.
Sometime in March, the bottom starts to drop out at Empornium. Supposedly there is move of programming/data to other servers. This proves to be true.
One admin in the know can see the problem of transferring the system from one server to the next, and Empornium went down. But Noos slowly recovered the data (this was the disappearance of userdata, that mysteriously came back and caused a lot of speculation in the forums).
On to ImageFap. Payments are getting screwed up. Payments are getting crossed between the many banking partners at ImageFap. Seems his skills from TinTel are being put to the test. These problems are still being worked out. There is some unrest on this front.
Noos is being run ragged during this time period to keep it all together. The Empornium Exodus is under way. Top admin and users start revolting. And PTNA are getting wind of it, users from Empornium start showing up on the PTNA doorstep.
July hits. Many things start to come to light. And history at Empornium starts to repeat itself at PTNA.
Backround at PTNA shows a shift in the control. It went to Noos. How do we know this? Because history of WhoIs records show PTNA administration going from Kuntzman to Noos, then the DNS mishap happened. After that mishap, the control of the site was under Domains by Proxy. This hid the true control.
In a PTNA forum post by Breeze, Noos owns PTNA. Okay … he owns some kind of control. Just like TargetPoint owns the domain of Empornium. He who controls the domain, controls it. I suspect that Noos has control of the PTNA domain, but he does not really own it. They may not own the site itself, but they damn well control it.
Noos sold out for controlling interest in PTNA, not ownership … control. I do not blame him for this, at least not yet. If he can maintain the spirit of PTNA and keep it out of the control of TargetPoint … then go for it.
Couple of months back there was the TargetPoint ads that caused disruption at Empornium. Now they are causing disruption at PTNA. This is the constant reloading of the page when the ads appear. People with AdBlock or other extensions for Firefox do not notice it. TargetPoint, nonetheless, has prime ad space in the middle of the page. The refresh problem is still not solved on either site, and again, this is putting Noos’ skills to the test.
Recently, Noos gave the order to transfer key admin over to Empornium in an effort to keep it alive. This was an open post in the forums. Posts against Empornium have not been censored, but they have been curtailed. Top admin have been supportive and trying to debunk the accusations surrounding the TargetPoint/PTNA connection.This is smart (not censoring the posts, but corralling them). There are some savvy admin/mods at PTNA and are very loyal.
Still, and soon, the users are going to get the connection between Noos and TargetPoint. PTNA is still running adspace there that is causing normal interuption of service with the reloading. And if TargetPoint is the baddy in all this, why is the glorious Noos still running their ads? Easy answer, he is beholding to them. He will do what he has to and make the whole thing work … it is a house of cards with Empornium, and PTNA lives right next door.
[quote comment="8192"]Couple of months back there was the TargetPoint ads that caused disruption at Empornium. Now they are causing disruption at PTNA. This is the constant reloading of the page when the ads appear. People with AdBlock or other extensions for Firefox do not notice it. TargetPoint, nonetheless, has prime ad space in the middle of the page. The refresh problem is still not solved on either site, and again, this is putting Noos’ skills to the test.[/quote]
You’re assuming that that constant refreshing of pages at Empornium and apparently at PureTnA is a bug. Another explanation is that it’s intentional to boost the page views, resulting in a lower rating on alexa.com. The lower the rating on alexa.com, the more you can charge for ad placement.
No it is definitely a bug. The TargetPoint ads are not being displayed.
If it was an attempt to influence Alexa, it is not working. Even the fallout from Empornium didn’t affect the ranking of PTNA.
If there was an assumption to be made, I would go with one user’s observation that the servers are in Israel. Well everyone knows that part, but he suggested that the war and the bombings have knocked their servers offline.
Empornium and PureTnA are hosted by nforce.nl, that’s not anywhere near Israel.
Bug or not, it’s been like that for months and the talented sysop hasn’t fixed it.
It dont matter, an average of 22 torrent sites a month are being established. this shit is growin like wildfire.
Now i’m just a blue collar country boy and I look atit like dis. Screw one girl, go get another. Even if 40 torrent sites sale out, hell theres 40 more were dat one came from.
As far as noos, I could give a rats ass who he is. he dont pay my electric bill. So lets pop up some more torrent sights and get this shit done.
Getter Done!
Arjan, neem eens contact met me op. Je weet me wel te vinden.
Fijne thread om te lezen dit trouwens ;)
-Menno
[quote comment="8285"]Empornium and PureTnA are hosted by nforce.nl, that’s not anywhere near Israel.
Bug or not, it’s been like that for months and the talented sysop hasn’t fixed it.[/quote]
C’mon dude … the bug is from the TargetPoint Ads.
TargetPoint is hosted in Israel.
Arjan is a puppet of TargetPoint and why has he not fixed it? Who the hell knows.
There is a lot of upheavel about it though. When you go to browse the PTnA torrents, it is almost impossibel with a n MSIE browser.
The ImageFap thing is another story. It is turning into a pop-up nightmare. Yet one of their top mods named Breeze is defending it.
Check out the Don’t use ImageFap post. It gets pretty lively. Gotta love TnA, they are still pretty open about all of this.
[quote comment="8347"] [snip] [/quote]
I know..
[quote comment="8347"]Gotta love TnA, they are still pretty open about all of this.[/quote]
No, they’re not. The only reason they stopped censoring was because of the massive attention the topic got. As it’s calming down again, the censoring has resumed. You’re not allowed to talk about Cheggit for example, it’s considered spam.
[quote comment="8429"]
[quote comment="8347"]Gotta love TnA, they are still pretty open about all of this.[/quote]
No, they’re not. The only reason they stopped censoring was because of the massive attention the topic got. As it’s calming down again, the censoring has resumed. You’re not allowed to talk about Cheggit for example, it’s considered spam.[/quote]
True about Cheggit. I see that. They have confined Cheggit to a Sticky for other porn sites … amongst a sea of others. And it is locked.
The ImageFap thread was locked as well. It may have not been censored, but might as well be I guess. Colorful language broke out from one of the Admin … we all know who … and another locked it.
PTna is looking more like an island in a stormy sea with its shores eroding away. Finding high ground to weather that storm out is getting tougher every day.
Arjan…..
Geduld is een schone zaak… en wij hebben geduld man…… hopen jou snel ff te zien….. Woerden misschien? Anders maken we ff een familie bezoekje…….je weet hoe WIJ weken, toch?
“Sanne” –> “MeiSW”
[quote post="384"]Arjan…..
Geduld is een schone zaak… en wij hebben geduld man…… hopen jou snel ff te zien….. Woerden misschien? Anders maken we ff een familie bezoekje…….je weet hoe WIJ weken, toch?
“Sanne” –> “MeiSW”[/quote]
translation:
patience is good , and we have patience. hope to see you soon .. in Woerden (a place) maybe? We could pay your fambly a visit. you know how we work.
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