This isn’t me trying to badmouth UC News. But I see that even after meeting and communicating, it seems like there’s no common ground.
Even after I waited for almost two months… Maybe they thought because I’m so relaxed, I’d just keep quiet. No, this time I won’t keep quiet. Since I’m a blogger, I’ll just share my experiences. Whether they’re good or bad 😀
Oh yeah, I didn’t write about it on catperku.com because catperku only discusses happy things related to travel. So, I write my personal stories on bloggerpi.com!
So, what’s my problem with UC News? The short part is below. I’ll explain it in more detail later!
Oh yeah, as I write this, it’s been three months since I encountered the problem with UC News~ Yay!
My Introduction to UC News
I don’t know if you’re familiar with UC News. I don’t really want to know what it’s all about either. When I first learned about UC News, I saw it as some kind of aggregator. And in my experience in blogging, I’ve been around for a while.
While they offer traffic, branding, and other benefits, aggregators aren’t good for blogs, especially those with websites. Google can consider them duplicates. If you make a mistake, your original article might be considered a duplicate. As a result, your article might disappear from search results, and even…PAGE ONE GOOGLE!
Isn’t it scary? That’s why, whenever I get a collaboration offer from aggregator websites like this, I always immediately decline, delete it, or if it’s annoying, report it as spam in my email! MUAHAHAHA!
Well, I was a bit curious about UC News. I’d received several collaboration offers from them (UC News). But I ignored them because I thought they weren’t much different from other shady aggregator websites.
For some reason, I casually replied and asked how UC News worked. At the time, I was contacted by a UC News employee named Carmelita (but she’s now quit UC News). What convinced me to collaborate with UC News was that Carmelita said that their platform was mobile-only, so there wouldn’t be any duplication issues in Google search.
Wow, that means this is an opportunity to find a new market. So I’m okay with it. Let’s try reposting some articles on catperku.com to the UC NEWS platform. Because I’m still trying, I’m reposting what I wrote about Backpacker Tips for Singapore on Catperku. I wanted to check out the waves first, that’s the story.
Because I accepted a collaboration offer with UC News, I found out that they used articles from Catperku.com without permission.
In short, I just copied the writing, and the photos I uploaded were exactly the same as the original writing. It doesn’t matter, Google won’t detect a duplicate anyway. It doesn’t take 10 minutes to repost anyway.
And, click SUBMIT!
Apparently, my article on UC NEWS couldn’t be published immediately. OK, I’m a new writer at UC, so it might take some time to get approved. So I just have to do other things.
But, some time later the results of sending my writing turned out to be REJECTED, NOT APPROVED, REJECTED! He said, my article was a duplicate of an existing one.
LHAAA! BIJIMANE CAN YOU? Wong that’s what the article is about Backpacker Tips for Singapore on Catperku own experience, and have I never published it on UC before? Moreover, my UC News account has just been created! Isn’t that weird!?
Immediately my detective instincts kicked in! I downloaded the UC News application on Mobile, and I looked for the title of the article I just posted and got REJECT.
DAAAAAAN!! JENG JENG~ ZOOM IN ZOOM OUT!
It turns out my article was already there! But I wasn’t the one who entered it even though I used my Author catper name. What’s the story, I just accepted the collaboration, and a new account was created?
That means….. UC News PICKED up my article without saying anything first~ Even before I accepted the collaboration offer. And who knows how many articles their scrapper bot has pulled. Obviously, I didn’t make any profit at all. Whether traffic, advertising or whatever.
Out of curiosity, I immediately looked for another article. My newest article! The title: A Month of Hunting for New Tourist Attractions in Bali!
Well, there is that too, even though this is a collaboration with another brand. WKWKWKWK!
Wes, it didn’t take long, I immediately protested to Miss Carmel and the WhatsApp group containing UC people to handle this collaboration. I want to get angry, but I’m not used to getting angry. Yes, the point is, just protest, wes!
While searching on Google, am I the only one who has problems like this? Turns out….
I’m not the first person… Sob! There are also those who have problems like this as below. But what happens next, I don’t know, until this article is finished, the problem with UC News is not resolved!
Clarification and Meeting from the UC News Team
In short, my expression of protest was followed up by them. They said it was from a third party that they didn’t know (How is that possible? Taken from a third party without them knowing where the article was pulled from?)
Then they asked me to look for any articles that were withdrawn to take down with them. YES I’M LOOKING FOR ONE! TIRED OF!
Apart from that, they wanted to invite me to a meeting to clarify this issue.
OK, I said yes, because at that time I still intended to collaborate with them for the long term. My hope at that time:
- I can send them an invoice. I usually sell articles with original photos and content for 3 million rupiah per post. Or, if I repost, I get 300,000-500,000 rupiah per post.
- Or receive compensation for the losses incurred from this issue, a win-win solution. (At a minimum, my retracted article will be paid for, then the retracted article will be assigned to my UC News account, and I’ll receive money from the ad monetization of my retracted article.)
- I was able to join their Super Thousand program. Yes, the reason I accepted their partnership was actually their Super 1000 program. They said writers were guaranteed 10 million rupiah in income from UC News. But never mind 10 million, when I offered them 30 USD per article for articles that had already been retracted, there was no response. I became skeptical about this platform, what if I represented a brand? Would I risk my brand’s reputation on a platform whose articles I don’t know where to STOLE?
Okay, fast forward to the meeting with UC News~
Initially, I was asked to come to their office in Jakarta. I forget where, but it wasn’t important. But since I happened to have a lot of meetings at GI, I invited them to meet at Starbucks GI for coffee (I paid for my own coffee).
There, I met several representatives from UC News. They apologized for this incident, and so on. I forgave them, but I wanted them to take responsibility for this matter. From that meeting, they offered the value stated in the email below:
If the email screenshot isn’t clear enough, I’ll elaborate. Essentially, they’ll pay me USD 120 for 10 articles per month. If I submit fewer than 10 articles, they’ll pay me USD 10 per article!
Actually, one of the UC News team members had already mentioned this figure during a meeting at Starbucks GI. I was about to negotiate, but I was speechless when I heard the figure. So I asked for an email so I could have a record and negotiate.
The thing is, rather than being paid USD 10 per article, I’d rather write for free for loyal readers of catperku.com. If I were just looking for USD, I’d rather focus on Google AdSense than gamble on a platform whose future, in my opinion, is uncertain, like UC News. Google is the world’s number one search engine.
In short, I replied to this email with a slightly higher offer. USD 30 per article, as in the email below. A fair rate for a reposted article that won’t be deleted forever. Plus, I get monetized for every view.
Email sent…..
After Several Full Moons Later
Then…
A week later…
A month later…
Until several full moons later, there was no response at all after I replied and offered USD 30 per article. I didn’t send an invoice for 3 million per article, you know?
I became even more skeptical about this company. Was it really getting a big investment like the news reports?
Don’t ask me, I don’t know either 😀
I asked several times in the WhatsApp group. When would this issue be followed up?
Several times, the answer was, “I’ll forward it to the relevant parties.” Until then, there was still no response from the WhatsApp group. So busy with work, I almost forgot about the issue.
Until then, the reply email arrived…
After reading… Humpppphhh…. take a deep breath and exhale so you don’t get carried away by your emotions.
I’ll translate the contents of the email above.
- Whether it was due to a handover or not, I don’t know, but my emails went unanswered. This was also because I was ranting on social media again, not because of WhatsApp.
- Alibaba Group’s UC News can’t afford to pay me $30 per article. *sigh*
- I get paid per PV. If I had known this, I would have refused cooperation from the start. I don’t want to waste time on other platforms, if I’m looking for money from PV and clicks, I’ve focused on Google Adsens. No more time for another platform!
The point is they don’t want to pay, let alone compensation. Muehehehe! Because of this email, I immediately lost interest in continuing my collaboration with UC News. I just want to write about this valuable experience on the blog!
I’m still calm, I just replied like this to the email:
It’s relaxing, isn’t it? My friend Bobby also encountered this problem, and the author of the virustraveling.com blog immediately went into a tirade. He replied, also sending me a CC like this:
Understandably, he’s Batak, and he gets hot-headed quickly. Furthermore, his writing was stolen by UC News and renamed Indo News.
HAHAHAHA! What a fate for you, Bob!
I’m looking forward to your post about my bad experience working with UC News Bob!
So now what is my problem with UC News?
Yes, it’s still floating around, it’s not clear, like what happens if you get PHP from your ex?
Finally, I was contacted by someone from UC News, his name was Mr. Adit. It seems like he read my complaint on FB. He said there would be a team from UC called Vincent who would contact me.
But… pufff, nothing at all until now, as I expected.
I’m not looking forward to it anymore, just being able to share my bad experience collaborating with UC News with Indonesian bloggers is already a pleasure. I hope no one has a bad experience with me.
And, maybe you can check your writing in the UC News application, maybe there’s something interesting there. Every time you send an invoice, you will always get paid by them.
But don’t expect it. I don’t know whether it was paid or not. I don’t think this problem is solved yet.
The funny thing is, recently I got an email like this:
Huuuufffh…..
WELCOME FROM HONG KONG! MY PROBLEMS WITH UC NEWS ARE NOT SOLVED!
Still, they’re selling 30 million UC News readers, branding, and so on.
Let me tell you, if you care about branding, don’t waste your time here. Better get serious about social media like Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube! Oh, YouTube~
I really wanted to reply to your WA LAUGH LAUGH LAUGH (LOL)…
But considering I have a lot of work to do and a looming deadline, I decided to just report the email as spam. I’m being nice, right?
Well, that’s my take on my bad experience with UC News. I hope it’s helpful for anyone concerned 😀
Finally, my message is, check the UC News app; maybe an article on your blog was also pulled without your permission! Good luck, happy hunting, and then request a takedown!
Update!
You can protect yourself from DDOS attacks like the one above by setting up the Cloudflare Firewall as described in this tutorial.
