As outlined in the
letter I received from MBS's solicitors, MBS looks as if it will cease trading and either incorporate into or go under the name of
Platte Media:
See also
this article about recent OFT investigation which seems to confirm takeover.
Also
this thread from the forum's first victim of Platte Media's pop-upsAll signs would seem to point to this.
My initial investigations suggest that Platte International Limited (of which Platte Media is a subsidiary, or trading name) hasn't been around very long. At least, various Internet domain names have only been registered since Autumn 2007. This doesn't necessarily prove it's a new company, but you'd expect a media and Internet company to have those properties set up early on.
Platte Media seems to run a new site called "Get Films Now" which appears to be a general interest site that utilises similar methods to MBS billing, but is not specifically "adult" though you do have to be over 18 to sign up, and it requires download of software to your PC.
Platte International's web site is currently a shell.
Platte Media's web site is a little more structured.
What's interesting is that the company has a
demonstration video of the signup process.
Despite the arrogance in presuming that their site is going to come up first in the paid results on Google when someone searches for "movies", they also show a completely different "Warning" page during the demonstration which pertains to adult movies.
Take a look at these screenshots. The third one bears no resemblance to what's on the "Get Films Now" web site, so either they're planning more adult services in the future, or they had an old screenshot, or they're subliminally trying to get you to think you were downloading porn (OK, that's a bit conspiracy-theorist, but you get the idea
)
Anyway, Platte Media owns the film site, so they can pretty much do what they want.
Look out for more news about MBS and Platte Media as we find it.
