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Era 3 · Traffic economics: affiliates and processing

2003–2011alive: NATS is sold and documented in 2025–2026;…

Too Much Media

NATS

Too Much Media is a small American company from New Jersey that in the 2000s sold owners of paid sites a program called NATS, which calculates which webmaster brought in which buyer and how much that webmaster is owed for it. The company did not make the content itself. It is known for two things: NATS became, by the company's own claim, the most widespread affiliate program software in its industry, and the company's lawsuit against the author of forum posts about a hack of its software reached the New Jersey Supreme Court and became a precedent on who counts as a journalist. The company and the product are still alive.

Founders John Albright · Fabian Thylmann · Charles Berrebbi
Domains toomuchmedia.com
infrastructureaffiliatepaymentsregulation

In brief

Too Much Media is a small New Jersey company that in the 2000s sold owners of paid sites a program called NATS, which tracks which webmaster brought in which buyer and how much that webmaster is owed for it. The company did not make content; it sold infrastructure. It is known for two things. A 2007 press release from a partner, the payment company Trustcash, says that NATS had the largest installed base among third-party affiliate programs in the industry, although no one gives any figures. And the company's lawsuit against the author of posts on an industry forum about a hack of its software reached the New Jersey Supreme Court and in 2011 became a precedent on who counts as a journalist online. The product is still alive in 2025.

How it started (the founders)

The 2007 Trustcash press release says that TMM was founded in 2003. Three founders, John Albright, Fabian Thylmann, and Charles Berrebbi, are named in Wikipedia with a reference to the company's website estimate. The court rulings name Albright and Berrebbi as the owners. Wikipedia, citing Spiegel, places the appearance of NATS in the late 1990s. We take 2003 for the company. The domain toomuchmedia.com was first captured by the Wayback archive in February 2004. The year of the first version of NATS remains open unverified.

The idea that NATS packaged already existed by 2003. Industry overviews begin affiliate marketing with the PC Flowers & Gifts store on the Prodigy network in 1989, but the date is disputed: Wikipedia places the launch of PC Flowers on Prodigy in 1988, and tracking and affiliate storefronts with the company PC Flowers and Gifts in 1994 estimate. Amazon launched its open Associates program in July 1996, and LinkShare, Commission Junction, and ClickBank appeared in 1996–1998 estimate. TMM's product was a ready-made "box" for owners of paid sites who did not want to write the tracking themselves. In 2010 the court described NATS as ready-made affiliate tracking software, a financial intermediary between affiliate sites, and TMM's profit as coming from software sales and a license fee.

Year-by-year timeline

Lesser-known but significant facts

  1. The software made money from licenses, not from a share of affiliate payouts. The court spelled out the model directly: profit from software sales and a license fee, while NATS itself did not collect money from users; it only tracked sales and the commissions owed. The company did not carry the risk of its customers' turnover estimate. Today the documentation describes license rental: a low starting price and a monthly fee, with the tier depending on the number of new subscriptions (joins) per month; for networks, full hosting by TMM has been added. We could not find when hosting appeared unverified.
  2. The lawsuit was about forum posts on the hack, not about the hack itself. It was the NATS database that was hacked (logins, subscriber lists, customer email addresses). The heart of the case was the defendant's posts on an industry forum, and the outcome was a precedent on the shield law. By 2011 the claim had not been heard on the merits: the court decided only the question of privilege, and the outcome after the case was sent back to the lower court has not been found unverified.
  3. The court lowered the bar for bloggers but denied protection. The Supreme Court stated that the law requires neither credentials nor adherence to professional journalistic standards, but it found that forum posts stand a step further removed than letters printed in a newspaper: letters to a newspaper go through an editor, and forum posts do not.
  4. One of the named founders later assembled the Manwin holding company. In 2010 Thylmann created Manwin by buying Mansef and Interhub, and in 2013 he sold his stake to senior management estimate. The sources do not say whether NATS money went into these purchases: a 2016 interview is unavailable unverified.
  5. NATS expanded from tracking to membership systems and networks. Today the product is described as tracking and membership management, and the page for networks lists CPA, CPL, CPC, and CPM.

Legend vs. the record

1. Amazon invented affiliate marketing. Retellings say: Amazon Associates in 1996 was the start of the industry. What the sources show: industry overviews name PC Flowers & Gifts on Prodigy, 1989, as the first program with revenue sharing, although Wikipedia dates this company's affiliate tracking to 1994; in 1996 Amazon removed the barrier to entry (any site could sign up without negotiations), and LinkShare, BeFree, Commission Junction, and ClickBank appeared in 1996–1998. TMM was founded in 2003, which means it arrived in an already established market. Verdict: a legend as far as "invented" goes; "scaled" is accurate.

2. Payouts to webmasters rested on nothing but trust. Retellings say: everything ran on trust. What the documents show: the tracking was done by software. The court describes NATS as a financial intermediary that tracks commissions between affiliate sites, and the 2007 release lists sales tracking, reporting, and fraud detection. The documentation describes payout programs by event (member joins, rebills, unique hits, raw hits) and a separate module for scheduling affiliate payouts. The 2010 ruling mentions a dispute between the competitor NR Media and TMM: TMM claimed that NR Media did not pay its affiliates properly; these are the parties' positions in a different case, not an established fact. Actual payouts to webmasters are not confirmed by documents. Verdict: not supported as to "without tracking"; unverifiable as to "whether they paid honestly" estimate.

3. A blogger is a journalist, and the law will protect them. Retellings say: the 2011 ruling either put bloggers on a par with journalists or, conversely, refused protection to all bloggers. The record: the court did not shut bloggers out. Protection is possible with a connection to news media and a purpose of disseminating news, and journalistic standards or credentials are not required; but a post on an open forum without editorial control did not qualify for protection. Verdict: both extremes are wrong; what decides is function, not the "blogger" label.

4. The court case revealed how the NATS business works. Retellings say: the rulings provide rare documentary detail. What the 2010 and 2011 rulings we read show: the revenue model (licensing), the type of customers (many of TMM's customers work in the adult entertainment industry), and a description of the hack, but neither revenue nor the number of customers. Verdict: there is detail about the model, but no figures.

The first growth lever

The sources give no revenue, no number of licenses, and no license price. Lever No. 1 is the position of "third-party ready-made software" for owners building their own affiliate program: in 2007 the Trustcash release speaks of the largest installed base among third-party affiliate programs in the industry, but no number is given, and the confirmation comes from the company itself and its partner on the release estimate. Lever No. 2 is being a platform: in 2007 Trustcash connects to NATS as an optional payment service for merchants, and the page for networks offers to plug in offers from other advertisers. Lever No. 3 is social proof: XBIZ awards in 2006 (shared with MPA3), 2009, and 2011. There is no independent confirmation of market share: "industry standard" is a self-description plus a 2024 commercial article.

The paired story

The pairing for this season is Elevated X, a CMS vendor for the same owners of paid sites.

Parallels today (projects from the catalog)

What a builder can take from this in 2026

  1. Sell the tool to those building a business in a risky niche. TMM carried neither content risk nor the risk of its customers' turnover; its revenue model was licensing. For 2026: infrastructure for "inconvenient" verticals (tracking, payments, compliance) rests on charging for software, not on a share of turnover estimate.
  2. A breach at an infrastructure vendor hits all of its customers. The hack of the NATS database affected logins, subscriber lists, and customer email. If you store other people's affiliate and subscriber lists, security is part of the product, and the public response to an incident needs to be prepared in advance.
  3. A dispute over public posts about your product can take three years and become someone else's precedent. The 2008 lawsuit led to the 2011 ruling on the shield law, and the outcome on the merits was never found. Before suing a critic, calculate the timeline and the risk of a precedent estimate.
  4. Expand the product with integrations, not just features. A partner payment service in 2007 and today's invitation to plug in other advertisers' offers are a way to turn a tracking program into a platform.
  5. Don't accept "industry standard" without numbers. In our own sample, the loudest claim about NATS rests on a self-description. When you write about a market, look for an independent estimate or flag a weak one.

Discrepancies and what we could not verify

Sources (primary first)

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The same thing, about today

The same breakdowns, but of projects launching right now: what the product is, where the first users came from, how they charge. The card is free, the full dossier is $5 (the dossier itself is written in Russian).

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