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The countdown to their affiliate accounts being shutdown starts now.

by javery 17y ago

groaner 17y ago
Honest question: what does it really take to get an affiliate account shut down? If I understood how this works, it simply replaces the URL of the affiliate link on the page I'm viewing. If that's all it takes to redirect the affiliate payment, what's there to prevent a rogue Firefox extension that secretly replaces every amazon.com link with one that deposits into the author's account? How about a proxy server that scans for these URLs and rewrites them so they make the server's operator rich? While it's good to see this being used for a good cause, it feels as if exactly the same method can be serving more nefarious purposes. Perhaps this will require oversight from the whoever runs the affiliate program, and I'm having a hard time imagining how they'd be happy if a third party is taking a cut of these fees.
- illumin8 17y ago
  I believe the issue is that Amazon and others specifically forbid affiliates from overwriting or replacing other affiliates links with their own. But yes, you are correct, some of the more "successful" (if you can call it that) Windows malware has taken the form of IE6 browser plugins and toolbars that overwrite affiliate links in any page you browse to. I can seriously imagine some enterprising 16 year old somewhere in Eastern Europe making 5-6 figure monthly income from this back in the early 2000s.
  - natrius 17y ago
    Easy fix: Audit a random selection of affiliate referrers by checking for the affiliate code in the actual source of the page. If it isn't there, either disable that affiliate account or check more of that account's referrers, denying credit for any pages that don't contain the affiliate code.
  - stealthyc2010 17y ago
    If I understand this correctly, it doesn't overwrite existing affiliate links. I feel it should though, its my browser after all.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
johnrob 17y ago
I have to agree here. Rewriting links in the browser probably violates the spirit of affiliation. A related question: does it re-write links that already have an affiliate id in them? That would be really gauche. [EDIT] Here's another way of thinking about it: what if they just kept the money and didn't donate to charity? I'm almost sure they'd be shut down. So why does donating to charity make it acceptable?
- nirmal 17y ago
  "...a Firefox plug-in that will rewrite any unclaimed links to a participating online retailer with an affiliate link..." They do not.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Question is how many unclaimed links are out there, and how long before savvy users try to hack it so they boost their donation amounts?
pg 17y ago
Not necessarily. I don't know if you noticed this detail, but they graphically distinguish their affiliate links (with a red underline). This means their affiliate links do exactly what merchants hope affiliate links will do: draw customers to them. The red link says "click on this and if you buy something we'll donate money to your favorite charity." Imagine how pleased merchants would be if an existing affiliate site decided to promote their affiliate links with red underlines and to donate 90% of the money to charity. The visitor's choice of charity no less.
- axod 17y ago
  Cashback websites are pretty big in the UK, I'm not sure how big in the US. For example: http://quidco.com http://quidco.com http://www.SimplyCashBack.co.uk http://www.SimplyCashBack.co.uk http://www.cashbackkingdom.com http://www.cashbackkingdom.com http://www.topcashback.co.uk http://www.topcashback.co.uk Literally thousands of them. Also there's a firefox plugin that finds cashback sites for any links on a page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7442 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7442 They're definitely reasonable earners, but TBH I think it's a harder sell to say "We'll give the commission to charity" vs "You can have the commission". One of the secrets is that there's usually a minimum withdrawal limit on cashback sites, eg £20, and unless you get up to that, the money isn't paid out. So what happens is you get tons of accounts abandoned before they get to £20 - this is apparently where most of the profit comes from. Also I don't think rewriting links on websites is a good idea at all. That's just not nice. Reminds me of that YC company that does a firefox plugin that removes the adverts from google search pages and puts other stuff there instead. >> "I don't know if you noticed this detail, but they graphically distinguish their affiliate links (with a red underline). This means their affiliate links do exactly what merchants hope affiliate links will do: draw customers to them. The red link says "click on this and if you buy something we'll donate money to your favorite charity." Are you seriously saying you'd expect this to increase a merchants sales? I'm not so sure. It just cuts into their profit and deceives website owners out of potential money. How about doing some decent natural language parsing for intent and matching that to a massive database of adverts, and providing it for publishers? That's a problem that really needs solving. eg "I might look at some flatscreen TVs this w/end" -> list of adverts for flatscreen TVs. keyword matching only gets you a tiny way, but recognizing real intent and meaning in text would be really valuable I think. Just my 2c.

The countdown to their affiliate accounts being shutdown starts now.

by javery 17y ago

The countdown to their affiliate accounts being shutdown starts now.

Honest question: what does it really take to get an affiliate account shut down? If I understood how this works, it simply replaces the URL of the affiliate link on the page I'm viewing. If that's all it takes to redirect the affiliate payment, what's there to prevent a rogue Firefox extension that secretly replaces every amazon.com link with one that deposits into the author's account? How about a proxy server that scans for these URLs and rewrites them so they make the server's operator rich? While it's good to see this being used for a good cause, it feels as if exactly the same method can be serving more nefarious purposes. Perhaps this will require oversight from the whoever runs the affiliate program, and I'm having a hard time imagining how they'd be happy if a third party is taking a cut of these fees.

illumin8 17y ago
I believe the issue is that Amazon and others specifically forbid affiliates from overwriting or replacing other affiliates links with their own. But yes, you are correct, some of the more "successful" (if you can call it that) Windows malware has taken the form of IE6 browser plugins and toolbars that overwrite affiliate links in any page you browse to. I can seriously imagine some enterprising 16 year old somewhere in Eastern Europe making 5-6 figure monthly income from this back in the early 2000s.
- natrius 17y ago
  Easy fix: Audit a random selection of affiliate referrers by checking for the affiliate code in the actual source of the page. If it isn't there, either disable that affiliate account or check more of that account's referrers, denying credit for any pages that don't contain the affiliate code.
- stealthyc2010 17y ago
  If I understand this correctly, it doesn't overwrite existing affiliate links. I feel it should though, its my browser after all.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

johnrob 17y ago

I have to agree here. Rewriting links in the browser probably violates the spirit of affiliation. A related question: does it re-write links that already have an affiliate id in them? That would be really gauche. [EDIT] Here's another way of thinking about it: what if they just kept the money and didn't donate to charity? I'm almost sure they'd be shut down. So why does donating to charity make it acceptable?

nirmal 17y ago
"...a Firefox plug-in that will rewrite any unclaimed links to a participating online retailer with an affiliate link..." They do not.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Question is how many unclaimed links are out there, and how long before savvy users try to hack it so they boost their donation amounts?

pg 17y ago

Not necessarily. I don't know if you noticed this detail, but they graphically distinguish their affiliate links (with a red underline). This means their affiliate links do exactly what merchants hope affiliate links will do: draw customers to them. The red link says "click on this and if you buy something we'll donate money to your favorite charity." Imagine how pleased merchants would be if an existing affiliate site decided to promote their affiliate links with red underlines and to donate 90% of the money to charity. The visitor's choice of charity no less.

axod 17y ago
Cashback websites are pretty big in the UK, I'm not sure how big in the US. For example: http://quidco.com http://quidco.com http://www.SimplyCashBack.co.uk http://www.SimplyCashBack.co.uk http://www.cashbackkingdom.com http://www.cashbackkingdom.com http://www.topcashback.co.uk http://www.topcashback.co.uk Literally thousands of them. Also there's a firefox plugin that finds cashback sites for any links on a page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7442 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7442 They're definitely reasonable earners, but TBH I think it's a harder sell to say "We'll give the commission to charity" vs "You can have the commission". One of the secrets is that there's usually a minimum withdrawal limit on cashback sites, eg £20, and unless you get up to that, the money isn't paid out. So what happens is you get tons of accounts abandoned before they get to £20 - this is apparently where most of the profit comes from. Also I don't think rewriting links on websites is a good idea at all. That's just not nice. Reminds me of that YC company that does a firefox plugin that removes the adverts from google search pages and puts other stuff there instead. >> "I don't know if you noticed this detail, but they graphically distinguish their affiliate links (with a red underline). This means their affiliate links do exactly what merchants hope affiliate links will do: draw customers to them. The red link says "click on this and if you buy something we'll donate money to your favorite charity." Are you seriously saying you'd expect this to increase a merchants sales? I'm not so sure. It just cuts into their profit and deceives website owners out of potential money. How about doing some decent natural language parsing for intent and matching that to a massive database of adverts, and providing it for publishers? That's a problem that really needs solving. eg "I might look at some flatscreen TVs this w/end" -> list of adverts for flatscreen TVs. keyword matching only gets you a tiny way, but recognizing real intent and meaning in text would be really valuable I think. Just my 2c.