Some forum members reported their Udemy accounts were deleted. Someone shared that the mass account deleting happened because Udemy was hunting people who shared their courses on free sites. I want to point out a possibility and then suggest a reason why the accounts were deleted.
It looks like all of the links to Udemy courses are direct links, that is, they link directly to Udemy instead of an anonymizer.
Did you know it is possible for a website owner to track the domain name and even the webpage you linked from? This means they can see you came from "The Best Blackhat Forum."
If you are Udemy and you are searching for people who shared your courses on torrent sites and other free download sites, what would you think about people who are associated with a blackhat forum? Would you think that maybe they did it? Would you get angry? Would you want to delete their accounts? I bet you would delete their accounts!
The HTTP referer (originally a misspelling of referrer) is an HTTP header field that identifies the address of the webpage that linked to the resource being requested. By checking the referrer, the new webpage can see where the request originated. They can see that someone linked from http://bestblackhatforum.com
An anonymizer or an anonymous proxy is a tool that attempts to make activity on the Internet untraceable. It is a proxy server computer that acts as an intermediary and privacy shield between a client computer and the rest of the Internet
Instead of posting direct links, what if people who posted links to courses used an anonymizer?
I believe this could make a big positive difference. What do you think?
Its a good observation..
but the links is in plain text..
so people copy paste the link..
is it possible to track the source?
It is possible to go the destination page without copying and pasting. Many browsers, such as Firefox and Chrome, allow you to select the link and open it directly.
I might be wrong, but links posted here mostly in text format, so there is no way to click on it thus there is no way to track. But actually I do not understand what is the problem to share links with coupons to Udemy?.... You are talking about 2 different things: 1. links to Udemy 2. share grabbed courses... First is completely legal and what this thread is about....
Some forum members reported their Udemy accounts were deleted. Someone shared that the mass account deleting happened because Udemy was hunting people who shared their courses on free sites. I pointed out a possibility and then suggested a reason why the accounts were deleted.
[ I'll add this to the original post. ]
Thanks for pointing out my omission.
[quote='Жека ツ' pid='2374942' dateline='1519833946']
I might be wrong, but links posted here mostly in text format, so there is no way to click on it thus there is no way to track. But actually I do not understand what is the problem to share links with coupons to Udemy?.... You are talking about 2 different things: 1. links to Udemy 2. share grabbed courses... First is completely legal and what this thread is about....
[/quote]
Free courses you find here are actually shared by teachers who wish to get reviews for their courses.
If a teacher doesn't want to give a course away for free, they will not give coupons around, that's for sure.
Also, if you use an anonymizer it's more likely your activity will be seen as suspicious.
I've never worked for Udemy, but I've been a Network Admin for years. Bandwidth is a significant cost for sites like Udemy.
I've always wondered why Udemy allows free coupons when Udemy has to pay for available bandwidth on their network for free users to watch the videos.
My guess is that Udemy is banning accounts where the account user is consistently consuming more bandwidth than Udemy earns in sales from a specific user.
In my job, we monitor user accounts that are using more than the expected amount of bandwidth. For the largest bandwidth users, we may throttle their usage.
If a user downloads multiple courses that they received for free, maybe their accounts are being flagged as a money losing account?
Just my idea. Not sure if this is the case. But if a user pays little or nothing for their Udemy courses and then uses a large chunk of bandwidth, I am sure that Udemy is losing money.
Apparently a customer service person from Udemy shared that the mass account deleting happened because Udemy was hunting people who shared their courses on free sites.
FYI, There are many Udemy courses available for download on torrent sites and other free download sites. Looks like they decided to do something about it.
I suspect it's just normal for internet security people to suspect members of a website known as a "black hat forum."
VB
[quote='R2D2' pid='2375107' dateline='1519848245']
I've never worked for Udemy, but I've been a Network Admin for years. Bandwidth is a significant cost for sites like Udemy.
I've always wondered why Udemy allows free coupons when Udemy has to pay for available bandwidth on their network for free users to watch the videos.
My guess is that Udemy is banning accounts where the account user is consistently consuming more bandwidth than Udemy earns in sales from a specific user.
In my job, we monitor user accounts that are using more than the expected amount of bandwidth. For the largest bandwidth users, we may throttle their usage.
If a user downloads multiple courses that they received for free, maybe their accounts are being flagged as a money losing account?
Just my idea. Not sure if this is the case. But if a user pays little or nothing for their Udemy courses and then uses a large chunk of bandwidth, I am sure that Udemy is losing money.
[/quote]
[quote='R2D2' pid='2375107' dateline='1519848245']
...
Just my idea. Not sure if this is the case. But if a user pays little or nothing for their Udemy courses and then uses a large chunk of bandwidth, I am sure that Udemy is losing money.
[/quote]
Actually there are many benefits for Udemy in allowing free coupons.
For one, you get people to join the platform, then you get people to talk with their friends about Udemy, then you get reviews for courses that might not have made a cent otherwise, then you get the ability to contact all Udemy users via email with marketing campaigns, and so forth.
You don't become a huge website starting from nothing and immediately asking for money to your subscribers: maybe in the future they'll remove free courses but I suspect they're making more money than they lose with them.
Just my two cents.
@R2D2
I'm not attacking you, but for the sake of conversation I'm going to play the devil's advocate.
If Udemy were to function that way (as a pay for use system) I can almost guarantee they'd lose a large portion of their users straight away. Loss leaders are a great way to gain traction and build credibility; especially as a new instructor. Udemy has never claimed to be a subscription based system, and if they were to implement it at this point in time, they'd lose more in the long run.
From an Instructors perspective: If I were to allow my content to be published on a platform that was restricting my growth by discouraging my ability to offer free content to build my customer base I'd be pretty upset. Actually, I'd move somewhere else and bring my already existing customers with me via announcement.
From a Customer perspective: If I enjoy free courses and found a platform that provided numerous ones (the majority being of questionable quality) and my account was banned or flagged for picking up too many courses I'd be extremely angry; especially if I had already paid for quite a few courses.
The majority of people aren't actually downloading the courses because Udemy made it harder for most people to find the actual links. Technically they are streaming. If Udemy had a problem with free courses, then they should specify that in their TOS before it turns into a legal matter. What people often overlook is the plethora of platforms that already offer high quality content for free. If Udemy wants to shoot themselves in the foot then so be it. I'll be sure to keep mirrored copies of the courses that I actually Liked and/or Paid for.
I don't know what's going on internally, but Udemy has been acting pretty erratically over the past year+. Lots of undocumented changes to the site itself, and flagging different things. There has also been an increase in fraud and stealing of IP from self-proclaimed "experts." Udemy hasn't done much to help the people who aren't even on the platform that are losing money.
I've found myself using Udemy less often anyways, so I'll probably just sort through what I really want and save it for personal use. Most of the instructors don't publish updates very often anyways.