The United States Snowboard Association has filed suit against Go211.com owner Action Sports, Inc. after they say the company failed to pay the USSA a “$175,000 sponsorship fee, plus a 30 percent share of the defendant’s advertising rev according to a story in the Salt Lake City Tribune.
Alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment and trademark infringement, the USSA is asking a U.S. District Court for Utah judge to award the organization monetary damages and to stop Boston-based Action Sports from displaying USSA-affiliated materials. . . . Action Sports President Sean Aruda declined to discuss details of the case, but said, “we obviously have a much different view of the facts … This is just a business disagreement they chose to escalate. . . “We’re disappointed their attorneys took this action, and we’re confident it will be settled amicably,” he added. “We would love to continue doing business with them.”
Chances of that seems kind of slim at this point.
[Link: Salt Lake City Tribune]
Sean Aruda does not know core sports or how they function- I hope Tom Collins makes Mr Aruda’s life miserable. Exactly how the people that ‘worked’ for Go211 and ended up being dorked in the ass for services rendered. My middle finger is pointing right at Go211 and Sean Aruda. K-O-O-K!
Lat34, Go211… different names …same muzak
The fun part is that GO211 is a fraud from the start. and no one figured out.
They signed big deals with Burton, Oakley and even the US Navy based on huge traffic figures that came out of the blue. How could they get like 150K daily uniques from day 1 when a TWS could not achieve 1/10th of that despite having beeing around for years? This was just impossible and marketing people should have known it. Plus the fact that you could hardly see anyone comment anything on the website. Kinda weird when you get as many visitors don’t you think?
But if you dig just a little, using tools such as Google Trends or even Google, you just realize this trafic itself is a fraud, gained through massive use of malware and spyware.
To put it in other words, it appears GO211 payed to be included in some viruses that would open GO211 everytime an infected browser would try to access the web. Hence adding a (cheap) visitor to their stats, stats upon which they signed the deals afterwards claiming this audience was highly qualified sports action enthusiasts (hence expensive)
Needless to say, you don’t buy this kind of spyware from your local ad agency. This is illegal, requires strange connections, and tells a lot about the company.
elements of proofs?
1/ http://trends.google.com/websites?q=go211.com -> check the also visited section, that indicate which other websites the GO211 vsitors visit. Not a single one related to Action sports, but only websites included in Spyware programs.
2/ People complaining about their computers beeing infected with GO211 spyware
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=go211 spyware
You just have to browse the first results, it goes for pages…
“When I got home from school, I found my computer completely flooded with these popup webpages such as themoviedownloader, searchme, and go211.
The computer was fine hours ago, and before I knew it, my anti virus said it was malfunctioned and now I keep getting spammed. Whenever I open up a browser or wait a bit, one of those web pages opens up again.”
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081029205501AA8dG1e
that was in 2008!
2/ Huge variations of trafic
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=go211.com
looks like they could not afford to pay the spyware in april 2009, dropping from 70 daily visitors to almost zero. This would just be impossible if 99% of their traffic did not come from payed spyware.
I don’t know what’s more disturbing… That GrindTV started and continues to do the same or John Smith’s third grade level of grammatical abilities! “elements of proofs” – Thanks for making it seem like the enthusiasts of our sports are all morons!
John Smith is exactly right. I’m an event producer that was approached by go211. We did the research and discovered exactly what he said and some other stuff. It took us about about 6 months to do it though.
Who are you John and how did you come across this information?
Hopefully Sean Aruda (who happens to be a lying prick in case you couldn’t tell) will burn in hell for raping action sports.
Any one that Sean Aruda has touched, he owes them money! Sean is the biggest snake, it’s amazing he can sleep at night. The employees of Go211 are as follows.
– WIFE
– Nephew
– Niece
and a few randoms that are not involved with the industry. I find it amazing that a company can get away with ridiculous lies, but I guess that’s coming to an end.
Lots of industry talk in the last week that this is really a personal vendetta from one USSA board member her live-in, both terminated from the company for performance reasons. Its disturbing that it’s come to this but then again, the world is pretty sick and twisted. I’m sure that all their details will become public as this progresses and in the end, like all litigation, everyone involved will be losers 🙁
Can’t we all just get along? Where is the Love?
I am one of the ones who have been snaked and ripped off by Sean Aruda and go211. These guys are lying crooks who to my knowledge have never met a financial commitment in the last two years. They stole from the athletes by committing to contracts and then changing the rules and not paying them all along while continuing to use their likenesses.
Pricks.
I actually work in the same industry as Mr sean aruda. I’m an internet marketer myself and I could imagine exactly how he would have been able to manipulate the people he worked with by just showing traffic reports that were not real and were all bot traffic. This would only work for so long until someone knowledgeable enough like John Smith above took notice. And like john said, his traffic IS generated by bots. By doing a little reverse engineering on my end, I found His upstream sites are intermediary sites that lead to paypopup.com. It’s actually too bad that he started the site to begin with and did not foresee this happening as he now owes a lot of people money. If anyone who has worked with this guy would like to see come proof from a 3rd party like myself, contact me. The last thing we need is some outsider kid like Sean swindling people in an industry I grew up in and love just so he can pad his pockets. Let’s out this dude to the world. He’ll never scam again.
D b
sightunseen413X@aim.com
office – (617)237 0476
aim – sightunseen413x
I hear that Sean Aruda has been trying to off Go211.com1 to any takers. It’s the word on the street from the Real Media.
Scam 101: People are not idiots. If you think like one you are one.
Once again, it’s the vocal minority doing all the squaking.
Yes, there have been a couple/few athletes or “parnters” who under-performed so drastically in their contractual obligations that Go211 had to drop them — and a simpleton can deduce that the comments above are gererated by same.
The truth, and bottom line — Go211 has been a groundbreaking enterprise from the start, has created an entirely new playing field, and has successful, prosperus relationships with far more ahtletes and companies than the piss-ants airing their soiled shorts in the comments above claim.
Happy Tax Day.
Great to see you join the discussion Sean!
Any comments on this Spyware stuff?
cheers
I don’t know who you are, but I am certainly not Sean.
Nice try but we are still interested by your comments on that Spyware stuff.
Looks pretty serious and documented don’t you think? Unless Google itself is part of the anti GO211 conspiracy that is.
Mr. Bono,
Once again, I do not know you from a hole-in-the-wall.
Are you a singer of a rock and roll band?
As for the spyware stuff you question me about — I don’t have
a clue how any of that works. The only “upstream” I know of, has to
do with fallopian tubes !!
So, I repeat, I am not remotely related to who you think I am.
Stick a google in it, and get over it, ok Paul David Hewson.
I hear that Go211 owes Billabong 150k too? Sounds like everyone is in the wrong but Go211.com
search key words like Tiger Woods, Sex, and other popular random words on Go211 in their search window. and you will find blogs like the following.. crazy, but really sad that people do this. I’m sure some one else is in the wrong for this.
http://www.go211.com/u/lisomer/blogs/9586
Wow I guess someone at Go211 took off there blog that mention sex, taxes and Tiger Woods. Luckly I have a screen shot. Mr Boardistan is there a way to upload images to this blog area?
http://www.go211.com/u/lisomer/blogs/9586 (who’s mr delete at Go211?)
There’s a full stable of athletes who signed contracts who have said nothing and walked away with nothing.
Patricia Aruda is in charge of this company. I’m not even sure there IS a Sean!
Sean Aruda RIP – as poor of situation he created I had never wished this upon him. Condolences to family and friends.
I woiuld like to thank all of you for the beautiful comments in regards to my late husband. And FYI I never owned that company and for my children’s sake please have some respect.
I feel awful for the family, sorry to hear the news. Condolences.
No matter what the history here — Go211 did help open up the action sports web universe – our industry is full of people who do not “Pay There bills” — so, to isolate Sean versus anyone else maybe unfair and bad timing due to his recent passing – our sincere condolences to Patricia and family –
Yeah….where did GO211 come from? Hmmmmm
To those of you who so mean spiritedly write your comments without thinking of the effects they may have had on Sean’s family before his death and moreso now, shame on you. I’m certain whatever facts you all seem to have are not ALL of the facts that warrant a blog full of untruths and cruelty. I challenge you too apologize to his wife four children whose hearts are clearly broken. Although I’m not sure the malicious nature in which you write your comments would allow you to step out of the box and put yourself in their shoes, thus warranting an apology for words (that you wrote) which can never be taken back. Rest in Peace Uncle Sean.
Please be considerate of Sean’s family during this difficult time, and refrain from writing cruel comments. Sean has a beautiful family and are in deep mourning. Don’t kick someone when they are down.
regardless of anyone’s opinion on his character, the bottom line is he is someone who was adored by his friends and family and any untimely death with so many loved ones is tragic.
removing the business angle from this, ultimately it’s a life that ended prematurely and that in itself deserves a certain level of respect for the loved ones who may read this. unless you were personally involved with him for business, you do not know exactly what transpired. there are two sides to every story. and if you were involved with him personally for business and it ended poorly, your time would be better spent assembling a legal case rather than running your mouth online.
I had the pleasure to meet with Sean and his staff a couple of years ago when i flew from Florida to meet in Boston to discuss a partnership for my action sport designs. We couldn’t work out a deal but i left believing Sean and Go211.com were honest, hard working and legit. It just wasn’t the right fit.
Sean/Go211.com did open new doors to the business. The “old school brands” cannot stand anything new, unique and cool as they have been losing “theirs” (cool) as of late…
The man has passed. I have nothing bad to say. God Bless him. The sun comes up shining every morning no matter how tough things get – so it’s all about seeing that light of hope….
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