That's idiotic. If spam links counted for 0 (when caught) there would be no disincentive for everyone to use them. The appropriate way is for them to count negative but have some way of legitimate sites disavowing them at some kind of time or effort cost (oh wait, that's what the system currently is).
There's a huge number of replicated Chinese spam sites (xyz123.com, xyz456.com, mob123.com) that link to my site. I don't know why or when they started linking to my site, but I know that i didn't have anything to do with it. Your position seems to be that it's legitimate that I'm penalized for this. It's hard not to take this issue personally. It's like being falsely accused of a crime and having to pay a fine.
Is the disavow tool not available to those who tried to use spam links and got caught? I suspect the opposite actually. Those who automate link creation, also automate link disavowing. So the spam links probably have more penalizing effect on the innocent.
Still probably the right trade-off from GOOG's perspective, as long as black hat SEO has bigger negative effect on relevance than negative SEO.
Short answer: yes, but it'll cost you, figure out a better way.
First thing to know is, if you're talking to banks you're sort of talking to the wrong people. You need to be talking to Banking Host providers, or Core Banking System providers (they go by a few names). These are the companies that actually provide the back-end for the banks. So if you're talking to bankers, they won't have any clue because that's not something they do.
Second, read up on ISO 8583 - that's a common API that's used. You may need to implement it, although there are a few open versions around.
Third, it's going to cost you lots of time and money. If you're solo or small, figure out someone who has already done the hard work and pay them for this.
I see. Thank you for your input. Yes, currently I am starting it on my own and of course, I prefer to use an end to end solution rather than build it myself.
Can you recommend someone who has done the hard work? Is it Balance Payments as ig1 said?
Probably to make it hard to convert to cash or easily sold goods. That way they can give them out for customer service reasons / free giveaways, etc. without worrying about them being traded in for phones and sold at cash value (or near to it).
My point may have been too subtle. The GP made the claim that it is false that the ASUS tablet is bigger. I used the same logic to show that an 8 foot ladder can be "bigger" than a 12 foot ladder. By reductio ad absurdum, the claim that bigger only applies to area is shown to be false as you'd be hard pressed to find someone who says "No, no... the 8 foot ladder is bigger than the 12 foot one". This is a concept of "bigger" which can be applied to tablets as well. Whether measured diagonally or by height while standing in portrait mode, the ASUS tablet is bigger in that particular dimension than the iPad.
I'm sure that their marketing department steered well clear of the word "larger" because larger implies an overall size advantage whereas "bigger" can be construed as greater in one dimension.
Please provide a source for that number, it sounds beyond ridiculous. The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/11/080211fa_fact_...) states 33 million are sold in the US each year - so the idea that thirty times that many are tossed isn't really reasonable.
Agree with you, but it saddens me that people will listen to her just because she's "attractive." She's not that good looking, she just wears a lot of makeup. I'd have a conversation with her in a bar, but since she's hundreds of miles away from me I don't have to pretend that she's interesting because I don't get anything out of it.
Some places it is - I have friends from France who would consider "where do you work" and "what do you do" about as rude as directly asking how much money you make, and not to be done except among close friends.
I know a lot of people who are against certain commonly suggested reforms, but none of them think the US system works well. Instead, they think certain proposed reforms will make an already poor system even worse.
I think that continuing to discuss the bad parts, like this, is helpful, albeit only gradually.
The people with this attitude are generally either young, healthy people who have never needed serious medical attention, or people who have always had stable jobs that offer good insurance, and have never seen a hospital bill that didn't have 95% paid by the insurance company first. They've never been injured on the job and then forced to pay a year's salary for the surgery they need to continue working. They've never been prevented from starting a business because their employer's group plan is the only way they can afford their life-saving medication. They've generally only seen the system work. In the rare cases they've seen it fail, it has always been for people they don't know closely, and it always looks like an anomaly.
Showing these people that these problems are real, common, and affecting a huge number of people is a start.
If you have a better system let's hear it.