9 ms·

Posterous silently changes all external links to affiliate links

194 points by ash 16y ago

urlwolf 16y ago
Well, I'm not as torn as the author. They are altering the original content of the author, even if the result is the same. Imagine that someone's religion believes that you go to hell if you use affiliate links... posterous would have condemned them! (dramatizing works)
- jmtulloss 16y ago
  That's a bit silly, their whole draw is in the fact that they change your content. If you have a youtube link, they turn that into a youtube embed. If you have http://... http://..., they change that into an anchor. There are dozens of examples of content that you can put in an email and they will transform into something more useful, and this is generally regarded as being quite valuable. If you have a problem with posterous manipulating your content, you should probably be hosting your own content.
  - jtarud 16y ago
    I agree here, Posterous is free and a dam great service. If you want full control code your own blog or go the wordpress custom install way. They need to monetize somehow.
  - babar 16y ago
    They could be more transparent about their usage of this, since it isn't indicated anywhere on their admin pages, especially for people who may have been using their own affiliate links which are being overwritten. Having a paid version which would disable this would be another nice option for them to provide.
- chc 16y ago
  Imagine that my religion believes I'll go to hell if I read silly comments — you would have condemned me! This game can turn into an infinite recursion.
- jim_dot 16y ago
  If you're gonna get all bent out of shape about your "original content" staying "original", host the blog yourself...
- cbernini 16y ago
  I just rofl'd. But well, I'm still with Posterous. Not changing anyone's affiliate links seems pretty far and making use of the free money on their table is also reasonable. The idea is actually pretty good. I'd definitely love a blog-engine plugin that would make sure I don't forget my affiliate ID whenever I'm linking something. (just found something to look into)
jat850 16y ago
I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or doing something wrong, but following the author's directions, none of my links are mangled whatsoever - copying the google.com link simply pasted google.com. I do have Javascript enabled as stated. I tried with each link in the article, and not a single one of them is redirecting via Viglink. (edit) Using Firefox 3.5 on Linux
- mehta 16y ago
  adBock?
- josefresco 16y ago
  It probably only picks up links where it can insert an affiliate code like Amazon. Linking to just google.com probably does not trigger the systen.
NathanKP 16y ago
I couldn't repeat the link copying trick mentioned in the article. When I right clicked on the link and copied it there was just google.com, no affiliate link. I can see the viglink JavaScript in the source code for the page, though. Yet the dynamic DOM inspector shows that the link href has not been changed, nor is there an onclick handler added. Perhaps it does not work on Safari, or only works for specific users?
- aeontech 16y ago
  I would guess because a google.com link is not a link to a product, hence, there's no affiliate code for it in viglink databases? Try an amazon link perhaps?
  - NathanKP 16y ago
    The author of the post specifically says that he can copy the google link and see an affiliate link.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  I get the affiliate link when copying in Google Chrome on XP.
  - NathanKP 16y ago
    Ah, so it may only work on specific browsers. Safari seems immune.
    - ash 16y ago
      From drivingmenuts comment: Copied the link and pasted into the address bar in Safari - no change. However if I right-click, and choose Open Link in New Window, it briefly flashes over to VigLink.
    - chris24 16y ago
      The copy link trick only works on certain browsers. I'm using Safari, and copy link copies the actual link, not the affiliate link. Clicking it, however, takes me through the affiliate link. Seems to me like some browsers take the URL that gets opened through the click event when you copy the link, but Safari does not.
aeontech 16y ago
Huh, didn't livejournal try the same trick a month or two ago? http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100304/1741458425.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100304/1741458425.shtml
- unfletch 16y ago
  According to that article LiveJournal was (is?) overwriting existing affiliate links with their own. According to their co-founder, Posterous is only affiliating links that aren't already affiliated (ref: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309604).
  - aeontech 16y ago
    Well, from what I remember in followup coverage, lj claimed that overwriting existing affiliate links was a bug, and they were also just trying to affiliate links that aren't already affiliated.
mehta 16y ago
If you have ad blockers installed, you'll probably not see this. I can't see this on FF3.5+ with AdBlock plus
billclerico 16y ago
while it would have been nice to get a heads up, this doesn't bother me in the least. props to posterous for having a revenue model that doesn't interfere with the user experience whatsoever
- jon_dahl 16y ago
  Absolutely. What's wrong with a business having a revenue model? Better this than advertising or a crippled free version.
  - jamesbritt 16y ago
    The problem for me is that visitors to my site may think that I'm the one who is using this affiliate code, and that I'm looking to make a buck off my links. Is that a problem? Depends; some readers are put off by this sort of thing. Witness the comments on HN when someone discovers an affiliate link in a article posted here. You can dismiss this as a fairly benign way to increase revenue, but I'd prefer no one alter my content, benign or not, without telling me right up front.
    - patio11 16y ago
      Well, apparently these are fairly hard to discover if they can do it sitewide for millions of people and not have it seen for four months. This suggests an obvious opportunity for folks who want to promote their affiliate links on HN: clean links in HTML, dynamically retarget to affiliate link via Javascript. Nobody will see it. (Particularly for merchants who 301 their affiliate links to the standard pages -- you'd have to be watching your HTTP headers very carefully to see that.) Seriously, the possibilities for abuse of this are endless. Which is why the Powers That Be are going to come down on it like a ton of bricks.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      I'm amused at the thought of the common practice of linking to Amazon and explicitly disclaiming in the text that you aren't getting kickbacks you just really like the book and then the readership finding some semi-obscured javascript that adds affiliate links.
compumike 16y ago
I too don't actually see it via copying like the article mentions... however a quick View Source on this and another Posterous blog does reveal some javascript to call these guys: http://www.viglink.com/ http://www.viglink.com/ Pretty neat, I think! Assuming they're not overwriting existing affiliate URLs, then this seems like a reasonable game to play. In my mind, Posterous is providing free hosting / platform for the blog, so they have at least some claim to having helped make the affiliate sale. This isn't going nearly as far in bending the rules on affiliate programs as Browsarity (another YC company): http://www.browsarity.com/about.php http://www.browsarity.com/about.php (And good for Browsarity -- but I'm still surprised that various affiliate programs haven't disconnected them yet because of their much more tenuous connection to the underlying transaction.) [EDIT: clarifed this last sentence]
bravura 16y ago
What happens if the user is already trying to monetize their posterous content using affiliate links? Does Posterous steal the affiliate credit, in that case?
- rantfoil 16y ago
  Viglink does not strip existing affiliate codes.
  - bravura 16y ago
    Okay. Could you clarify more what happens if there are existing affiliate codes? Does Posterous only get an affiliate fee if there is no existing affiliate code?
    - buro9 16y ago
      That's pretty much the deal. Only URLs that don't yet include affiliate info gets re-written. There are a couple of companies in this space, viglink, skimlinks, etc. They all operate on the basis that they sign up to every affiliate scheme and they become the single publisher with which the merchants have a relationship (or more likely, the merchants use a marketplace that puts all merchants together so that they can be found). For any affiliate program that viglink/skimlinks is signed up to, should someone click through from your site a 45 to 60 day cookie is usually set by the affiliate provider to show who the last publisher is that made the referral. Should a subsequent purchase be made viglink/skimlinks is credited with the sale and receives the 3.5% > 15% affiliate payment. Catches (there are some)... 1) The cookie. Only the last web site to set a cookie gets the affiliate reward. In this case it means other sites actually providing value and setting affiliate click-thrus are going to get their cookie hijacked by posterous using viglink. So this hurts niche sites that really rely on the affiliate schemes. 2) The fee. Viglink and SkimLinks both deduct a 25% fee for this service. That's pretty damn high. They are VERY profitable. The benefits... 1) As a publisher you get 75% of the money that is currently left on the table. 2) You didn't have to sign up to every damn affiliate scheme... actually you'd be declined anyway as whilst a merchant will deal with the big boys they tend to only like smaller guys who stay in their knowledge domain (if you don't run an insurance content site, you don't get the insurance affiliate scheme). Basically viglink and skimlinks are simplifying the whole affiliate thing by doing for the publishers exactly what the merchants already had in places like Commission Junction... which is to provide a one-stop-shop. So... merchants get found via CJ, AffiliateWindow, etc... and publishers get signed up to all merchants via Viglink, SkimLinks, etc. What has ultimately happened is that now there are 2 intermediaries between the publisher and the merchant, both of whom take a slice. I don't blame posterous for doing this, it is just money left on the table. But the cookie hijack will hurt smaller sites for whom the affiliate scheme revenue is a bloodline.
iamwil 16y ago
Yeah, I don't know how I feel about this either. Especially when they don't tell you.
minouye 16y ago
To confirm for yourself: 1. Go to this post (the result of a Google search for Posterous and Amazon) - http://adeb.posterous.com/ubuntu-one-music-store-vs-amazon http://adeb.posterous.com/ubuntu-one-music-store-vs-amazon 2. Fire up a browser extension/add-on to monitor HTTP requests like HTTP Fox or HTTP Watch. 3. Click the link "here" at the end of the line: 1 install the rpm/deb from here You can clearly see a request to: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d427e97a1567cec6532655f0&v=1&libId=1272666511906.. http://api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d427e97a1567cec....
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  I was wondering why I wasn't seeing this for myself when I looked at the no-script settings. The code for this is coming from viglink.com. If you disallow or block such scripts you do not see the added affiliate info.
LiveTheDream 16y ago
Didn't LiveJournal do this recently?
huhtenberg 16y ago
Thank you for the heads-up. Just added *.viglink.com to the AdBlock list.
- jseliger 16y ago
  Ditto.
jarin 16y ago
I don't really see a problem with this as it does not strip off existing affiliate codes, it only adds them if they are not present. I mean, Firefox makes millions off of Google searches and nobody seems to complain about that.
- floodfx 16y ago
  FF makes money off revenue generated when you search and click on google ad. They do not replace links on content that you generate without telling you. Apples/Oranges my friend... Personally I use posterous as my personal site and I don't appreciate this.
  - milkshakes 16y ago
    would you rather have banner ads? they have to make their money somewhere. as long as they're not rewriting existing affiliate links, this is about as unobtrusive as it gets [edit: rewriting the links directly, instead of using a third party that necessarily obfuscates the url would be less obtrusive, but the principle is still the same]
    - csomar 16y ago
      >> they have to make their money somewhere I'm not against Posterous making money online to provide me a free service. However, they should be transparent and clear about it. When I sign up, I want to be notified about this. I'm going to create a blog, publish posts, make readership and stay a good time there; so I want to know whatever thing happens in my blog and not only be surprised about it when it happens. Point 2 is that they didn't have a clear strategy how to monetize themselves (which is crucial since nothing runs for free) from the beginning. Come on, but this is like saying "Get your free domain here" and then telling you that the domain is free, but only if you pay for the hosting :(
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Yep. And for all the handwaving about transparency and 'going forward' there is no real offer of a solution for what they've done to date, in other words, they did it and intend to continue to do it. If they're serious about this they'll switch the feature off for all accounts up to the moment of modifying their terms of service, and make sure that new signups are properly informed. This so called apology seems to mix up the meanings of the words 'unobtrusive' and 'sneaky'.
FluidDjango 16y ago
The OP says that using right-click to copy a link to google.com gives instead a link like: http: // api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d... But I am not experiencing that with a right-click in either Safari/Mac OR FF/Mac. He mentions Safari not being a problem. I find that FF/Mac isn't either. EDIT: Any chance that they have disarmed this after getting all the bad press (at least on HN)?
- dschoon 16y ago
  Looking at the code, the hooks are DOM listeners that intercept the click to do the redirect. They don't modify the anchor tag, so there's no reason anyone should see them on mouseover or right-click-copy.
DanBlake 16y ago
This isn't anything that uncommon. It doesn't strip off a existing affiliate link either (last i checked) so I dont really get the outrage. The firefox reference quoted earlier seems pretty similar.
invisible 16y ago
There is nothing wrong with adding affiliate links if there is no affiliate link there currently. It is only when it goes horribly wrong (livejournal) that it is a bad thing. Why should they not get paid for a free blogging service. Don't promote free models if you think this is a bad idea.
- cgranade 16y ago
  There is nothing wrong as long as it is done in a transparent way. Without that transparency, authors are potentially subjecting their readers to click-tracking without being able to give appropriate disclosures.
  - invisible 16y ago
    I don't understand how far they need to go to show that they do this without being obnoxious. If they show the affiliate link instead it may confuse users (even in the status bar).
    - cgranade 16y ago
      At least show the authors, so that they can decide how much to disclose to their readers.
dave1619 16y ago
Weird. I posted a simple link, http://www.apple.com/wwdc http://www.apple.com/wwdc on our blog (http://gpapps.com http://gpapps.com), and I get this crazy sequence of forwards: http://clk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=2554&a=1503186&g=17981984&epi=skim725X556513&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Fwwdc http://clk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=2554&a=1503186&g... http://registration.euro.apple.com/cgi-bin/trade-cookie.cgi?aosid=p204&siteid=1503186&program_id=2554&cid=OAS-EMEA-AFF&tduid=3c4d29bc25f11b282b35eba6cf83c3e6&url=http://www.apple.com/wwdc http://registration.euro.apple.com/cgi-bin/trade-cookie.cgi?... http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/?aosid=p204&siteid=1503186&program_id=2554&cid=OAS-EMEA-AFF&tduid=3c4d29bc25f11b282b35eba6cf83c3e6 http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/?aosid=p204&siteid=15031... All I want is my readers to go to the simple http://apple.com/wwdc http://apple.com/wwdc link and not all that junk. Posterous was awesome before this.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- a4agarwal 16y ago
  Not sure what's going on there. That site isn't even a Posterous website so I don't understand why you think those redirects are related to Posterous
- rantfoil 16y ago
  Your blog http://gpapps.com/ http://gpapps.com/ is not hosted on Posterous. This is unrelated to the discussion at hand.
  - dave1619 16y ago
    I post on our blog via postereous. Meaning, I email my blog post to posterous and posterous posts on my wordpress account. My original link in my post was http://www.apple.com/wwdc http://www.apple.com/wwdc, but it does this crazy URL forwarding that viglink added in. It clearly affects users.
    - tino 16y ago
      Even if you are somehow using Posterous to post to WordPress (I'm not familiar with Posterous' features), they're not the ones doing your redirect. It actually looks like WordPress is doing the same link affiliation as Posterous. They're using Skimlinks, not VigLink, but the result is the same. (Open a javascript console while on your blog and take a look at the skimlinks function.) FYI, Skimlinks is based in the UK. That probably explains why the original apple.com link bounces through euro.apple.com. As easy as it is to miss, I bet there are a lot of sites doing this now.
icey 16y ago
If this works, doesn't overwrite existing affiliate links and doesn't end up in a bad experience for users then I'm all for it. Posterous has to make money somehow, this is better than banner ads if you ask me.
jrockway 16y ago
Is there a good browser extension that removes all affiliate links? I use Amazon a lot, and I don't feel that Amazon should be paying someone to refer me there, as I already buy everything from Amazon anyway.
bgreenlee 16y ago
If it bothers you, you can add rel="norewrite" to your links (editing as HTML), and it won't rewrite them.
TotlolRon 16y ago
There are two issues here: a. The links. b. The disclosure. Item a is very well debated. What about b? Why aren't users notified of it? If it is a recent change, why wasn't it announced? Etc.
- chacha102 16y ago
  They should have posted something on their Official Blog. However, there are a lot of things they should have done before releasing this...
  - Tichy 16y ago
    You should be informed of this when signing up for a blog.
sounddust 16y ago
I don't think there's anything wrong with this, but why would Amazon, Walmart and others not make this type of linking against their terms of service? It goes against the spirit of affiliate programs, which is an exchange of actual promotion in exchange for commission. The stores aren't gaining anything by allowing it since those links were already published. And it hurts other affiliates, not only by directly taking their commissions (because the most recent affiliate click before purchase counts), but also because it increases the total amount that the stores are paying out. If this catches on, it will force merchants to lower their commission rates, causing them to lose publishers. I think that most merchants will end up forbidding the practice, just as many have forbid bidding against them in PPC campaigns.
- greendestiny 16y ago
  Also there is no guarantee that in a blog post that people will adhere to the conditions that affiliates impose when they aren't aware they are part of an affiliate program. For instance Amazon requires that the product be described accurately and that it doesn't seem to be endorsed by a third party. Other sites probably have other requirements, though of course I have no idea what Amazon's arrangement with Viglink is.
vishaldpatel 16y ago
There can be only one explanation. Posterous was hacked!
chris24 16y ago
Looks like my /etc/hosts file just got one line longer. :)
- mahmud 16y ago
  /etc/hosts is for your systems, use AdBlock for the junk ;-)
Tichy 16y ago
Scary how many people thing that kind of thing is OK. Isn't it at the very least very sneaky? "They need to make money somehow" is not an excuse for being sneaky. The only thing in their favor is that customers should probably expect a catch since the service is "free".
daeken 16y ago
As a Posterous user, I'm happy that they did this. It has essentially no effect on the end user, potentially makes them money (to support their excellent, free service), and doesn't kill existing affiliate links. Keep up the good work, guys.
- danieldon 16y ago
  It has essentially no effect on the end user Sure it does. Users get inconsistent and bizarre behavior when trying to copy and paste links. It would be tremendously confusing to try to copy and paste a link only to find out that what ended up on the clipboard was a completely foreign link that's totally different from what was displayed in the status bar.
a4agarwal 16y ago
Hey guys, Posterous partnered with Viglink.com back in December as an experiment to see if we could generate revenue by adding an affiliate code to links that don't already have one. We chose to work with Viglink because their technology doesn't interfere with the user experience at all. 1. Links in Posterous posts are not edited in any way 2. Viglink javascript intercepts clicks and adds an affiliate code when possible 3. Affiliate codes are not stripped or altered if they already exist 4. Copying links is unchanged Before deploying this change, we tested it heavily to make sure we weren't doing anything that would be visible to the publisher or reader. The fact that it took 4 months for someone to really notice this is a testament to how unobtrusive it is. Some people have commented that we should be sharing revenue back to the users. You are absolutely right. This is something we mentioned to Viglink at our very first meeting with them and something we will add when it's technically possible. Admittedly, we should have announced this on our blog. This was definitely an oversight on our part. Our goal is to be 100% transparent with everything we do at Posterous, especially when it affects your blog and content. From Posterous, we apologize. Going forward we will be sure to notify you of any changes we make to the site. With regards to viglink: we really appreciate all your feedback and we're going to evaluate our use of the service going forward. -Sachin cofounder, posterous.com
- ajg1977 16y ago
  I'm curious as to whether you considered if this would have any effect on PageRank for content you host? This type of behavior - using javascript to present the user with links different than the googlebot found - seems like the type of thing they frown on.
  - pak 16y ago
    Unless googlebot runs a javascript engine, I don't think it will ever be able to find out... unless a human over there reads this and adds this information to their PageRank database. Google does this themselves for their search engine pages, in a way... if you have JavaScript running, there is an onmousedown pingback added for every link in the search results so they know what you click on. The link itself remains apparently unaffected. Check it out if you have Firebug/Web Inspector, each link has e.g. onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','res','1','','012394AFC')".
ALee 16y ago
I for one have no problems with this. I mean these guys host my stuff for free, right? Well, people probably don't know that wordpress.com and a bunch of services that host your content for free also use services very similar to this. Everyone's getting angry at something that has been happening on sites for the past 2-3 years already.
cj 16y ago
You can't click links with the track/scroll ball (which normally opens links in new windows) with Viglink. This is the only thing that bothers me.
- greyman 16y ago
  Hmm..that's not very good, is it? I for one almost always open links this way...
qq66 16y ago
If this becomes big enough of a revenue model for enough companies, the big affiliate payors will change their TOS and refuse to pay third-party hosters. They're trying to pay the people who promote their content directly.
jarin 16y ago
Let me ask you guys something: would you be upset if HN did this?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- mahmud 16y ago
  Not at all upset. It would give me a 30-minute project to circumvent it.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    How could you possibly circumvent it? Hacking the HN servers?
    - mahmud 16y ago
      No, my own browser. On the wire, it's just headers followed by \n\n followed by body the size of Content-length :-) HTTP is a child's play.
- Tichy 16y ago
  Sure, why not?
obxerve 16y ago
First, personally, I think the use of "oversight" as the reason is oversimplifying. You need more than one "oversight" for this to happen the way it has evolved until caught red handed. And the collective of them looks "weird". Second, I sincerely agree that I would love to see Posterous earn a profit for such a great service. But "free is free", not "free if I exploit the links on your blog unaware to you". The blog content is the property of the blog owner (except if the owner explicitly makes it public property). I do not think it wise for Posterous to earn income from the blog content without the blog owner's explicit permission. Third, the response from Posterous does not make it clear the plan to rectify the issue - it is just an apology. The apropriate response, I think, VigLink should be disabled immediately for all blogs. Then each blog owner can be given the option to either opt in (and hopefully gets a cut) or take their content elsewhere. Just some observations.
kylecordes 16y ago
It is on days like that, that I am happy that my blog and company sites are hosted on normal web hosting. I can run whatever blog or CMS I like, whatever versions I like, whatever ads I like (none), whatever affiliates I like (none), and never worry that an otherwise slick platform starts rewriting my links, adding ads, or whatever.
lm741 16y ago
I posted about this a while ago: http://lm741.posterous.com/16766453 http://lm741.posterous.com/16766453 Two easy ways to get around it: url shorteners and redirect services.
wooster 16y ago
Did anyone else here read this and immediately install VigLink on a site?
- al_james 16y ago
  Yes!
suhail 16y ago
We have a blog on Posterous and we have no issues with these guys doing this--totally support them making money while giving us a great place to post content. I don't honestly see what the big deal is. You can barely tell anything is happening.
ash 16y ago
Update: After several hours after posting this I couldn't repeat "copy link" trick. Neither in Chrome, nor in Internet Explorer. And middle click now works as intended in Chrome. It seems Posterous and/or VigLink changed some of their algorithms. They didn't get rid of affiliate magic (VigLink javascript is still there). But thanks for fixing bugs - the most annoying for me was non-working middle-click in Chrome.
pilif 16y ago
This would really annoy me if I had a posterous blog. In my writing I always intentionally make sure links don't contain any affiliate tags to make a point that I'm not writing about some product with the intention to make money but strictly out of interest or because the product is awesome. If that tag is added for me I lose that advantage in credibility AND I don't earn the money either, but somebody else does with my content and apparently without my knowledge. That is annoying.
avar 16y ago
As of March 4, 2010 posterous has no way in their interface to delete your account. If you want it deleted you should mail vince@posterous.com or help@posterous.com and ask for it to be deleted. I've just done so. Citation: http://inbtwnrthedoors.posterous.com/3604263 http://inbtwnrthedoors.posterous.com/3604263
- jacquesm 16y ago
  One more thing they should mention in their terms of service.
- jorgecastillo 16y ago
  I didn't bother to delete my account emailing (didn't even now about that). I just deleted my content (two post), name and avatar. I did this sometime ago. Because of this incident I would certainly do the same now if I was still a Posterous user.
- avar 16y ago
  Update: Just got my account removed.
jorgecastillo 16y ago
If anyone intends to change his blogging service I recommend http://my.opera.com/ http://my.opera.com/. Although they don't have automatic blog import, so if you have lots of stuff you might want to back it up first and you will have to transfer all your post manually.

194 points by ash 16y ago

Well, I'm not as torn as the author. They are altering the original content of the author, even if the result is the same. Imagine that someone's religion believes that you go to hell if you use affiliate links... posterous would have condemned them! (dramatizing works)

jmtulloss 16y ago
That's a bit silly, their whole draw is in the fact that they change your content. If you have a youtube link, they turn that into a youtube embed. If you have http://... http://..., they change that into an anchor. There are dozens of examples of content that you can put in an email and they will transform into something more useful, and this is generally regarded as being quite valuable. If you have a problem with posterous manipulating your content, you should probably be hosting your own content.
- jtarud 16y ago
  I agree here, Posterous is free and a dam great service. If you want full control code your own blog or go the wordpress custom install way. They need to monetize somehow.
- babar 16y ago
  They could be more transparent about their usage of this, since it isn't indicated anywhere on their admin pages, especially for people who may have been using their own affiliate links which are being overwritten. Having a paid version which would disable this would be another nice option for them to provide.
chc 16y ago
Imagine that my religion believes I'll go to hell if I read silly comments — you would have condemned me! This game can turn into an infinite recursion.
jim_dot 16y ago
If you're gonna get all bent out of shape about your "original content" staying "original", host the blog yourself...
cbernini 16y ago
I just rofl'd. But well, I'm still with Posterous. Not changing anyone's affiliate links seems pretty far and making use of the free money on their table is also reasonable. The idea is actually pretty good. I'd definitely love a blog-engine plugin that would make sure I don't forget my affiliate ID whenever I'm linking something. (just found something to look into)

jat850 16y ago

I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or doing something wrong, but following the author's directions, none of my links are mangled whatsoever - copying the google.com link simply pasted google.com. I do have Javascript enabled as stated. I tried with each link in the article, and not a single one of them is redirecting via Viglink. (edit) Using Firefox 3.5 on Linux

mehta 16y ago
adBock?
josefresco 16y ago
It probably only picks up links where it can insert an affiliate code like Amazon. Linking to just google.com probably does not trigger the systen.

NathanKP 16y ago

I couldn't repeat the link copying trick mentioned in the article. When I right clicked on the link and copied it there was just google.com, no affiliate link. I can see the viglink JavaScript in the source code for the page, though. Yet the dynamic DOM inspector shows that the link href has not been changed, nor is there an onclick handler added. Perhaps it does not work on Safari, or only works for specific users?

aeontech 16y ago
I would guess because a google.com link is not a link to a product, hence, there's no affiliate code for it in viglink databases? Try an amazon link perhaps?
- NathanKP 16y ago
  The author of the post specifically says that he can copy the google link and see an affiliate link.
ErrantX 16y ago
I get the affiliate link when copying in Google Chrome on XP.
- NathanKP 16y ago
  Ah, so it may only work on specific browsers. Safari seems immune.
  - ash 16y ago
    From drivingmenuts comment: Copied the link and pasted into the address bar in Safari - no change. However if I right-click, and choose Open Link in New Window, it briefly flashes over to VigLink.
  - chris24 16y ago
    The copy link trick only works on certain browsers. I'm using Safari, and copy link copies the actual link, not the affiliate link. Clicking it, however, takes me through the affiliate link. Seems to me like some browsers take the URL that gets opened through the click event when you copy the link, but Safari does not.

aeontech 16y ago

Huh, didn't livejournal try the same trick a month or two ago? http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100304/1741458425.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100304/1741458425.shtml

unfletch 16y ago
According to that article LiveJournal was (is?) overwriting existing affiliate links with their own. According to their co-founder, Posterous is only affiliating links that aren't already affiliated (ref: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309604).
- aeontech 16y ago
  Well, from what I remember in followup coverage, lj claimed that overwriting existing affiliate links was a bug, and they were also just trying to affiliate links that aren't already affiliated.

mehta 16y ago

If you have ad blockers installed, you'll probably not see this. I can't see this on FF3.5+ with AdBlock plus

billclerico 16y ago

while it would have been nice to get a heads up, this doesn't bother me in the least. props to posterous for having a revenue model that doesn't interfere with the user experience whatsoever

jon_dahl 16y ago
Absolutely. What's wrong with a business having a revenue model? Better this than advertising or a crippled free version.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  The problem for me is that visitors to my site may think that I'm the one who is using this affiliate code, and that I'm looking to make a buck off my links. Is that a problem? Depends; some readers are put off by this sort of thing. Witness the comments on HN when someone discovers an affiliate link in a article posted here. You can dismiss this as a fairly benign way to increase revenue, but I'd prefer no one alter my content, benign or not, without telling me right up front.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Well, apparently these are fairly hard to discover if they can do it sitewide for millions of people and not have it seen for four months. This suggests an obvious opportunity for folks who want to promote their affiliate links on HN: clean links in HTML, dynamically retarget to affiliate link via Javascript. Nobody will see it. (Particularly for merchants who 301 their affiliate links to the standard pages -- you'd have to be watching your HTTP headers very carefully to see that.) Seriously, the possibilities for abuse of this are endless. Which is why the Powers That Be are going to come down on it like a ton of bricks.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    I'm amused at the thought of the common practice of linking to Amazon and explicitly disclaiming in the text that you aren't getting kickbacks you just really like the book and then the readership finding some semi-obscured javascript that adds affiliate links.

compumike 16y ago

I too don't actually see it via copying like the article mentions... however a quick View Source on this and another Posterous blog does reveal some javascript to call these guys: http://www.viglink.com/ http://www.viglink.com/ Pretty neat, I think! Assuming they're not overwriting existing affiliate URLs, then this seems like a reasonable game to play. In my mind, Posterous is providing free hosting / platform for the blog, so they have at least some claim to having helped make the affiliate sale. This isn't going nearly as far in bending the rules on affiliate programs as Browsarity (another YC company): http://www.browsarity.com/about.php http://www.browsarity.com/about.php (And good for Browsarity -- but I'm still surprised that various affiliate programs haven't disconnected them yet because of their much more tenuous connection to the underlying transaction.) [EDIT: clarifed this last sentence]

bravura 16y ago

What happens if the user is already trying to monetize their posterous content using affiliate links? Does Posterous steal the affiliate credit, in that case?

rantfoil 16y ago
Viglink does not strip existing affiliate codes.
- bravura 16y ago
  Okay. Could you clarify more what happens if there are existing affiliate codes? Does Posterous only get an affiliate fee if there is no existing affiliate code?
  - buro9 16y ago
    That's pretty much the deal. Only URLs that don't yet include affiliate info gets re-written. There are a couple of companies in this space, viglink, skimlinks, etc. They all operate on the basis that they sign up to every affiliate scheme and they become the single publisher with which the merchants have a relationship (or more likely, the merchants use a marketplace that puts all merchants together so that they can be found). For any affiliate program that viglink/skimlinks is signed up to, should someone click through from your site a 45 to 60 day cookie is usually set by the affiliate provider to show who the last publisher is that made the referral. Should a subsequent purchase be made viglink/skimlinks is credited with the sale and receives the 3.5% > 15% affiliate payment. Catches (there are some)... 1) The cookie. Only the last web site to set a cookie gets the affiliate reward. In this case it means other sites actually providing value and setting affiliate click-thrus are going to get their cookie hijacked by posterous using viglink. So this hurts niche sites that really rely on the affiliate schemes. 2) The fee. Viglink and SkimLinks both deduct a 25% fee for this service. That's pretty damn high. They are VERY profitable. The benefits... 1) As a publisher you get 75% of the money that is currently left on the table. 2) You didn't have to sign up to every damn affiliate scheme... actually you'd be declined anyway as whilst a merchant will deal with the big boys they tend to only like smaller guys who stay in their knowledge domain (if you don't run an insurance content site, you don't get the insurance affiliate scheme). Basically viglink and skimlinks are simplifying the whole affiliate thing by doing for the publishers exactly what the merchants already had in places like Commission Junction... which is to provide a one-stop-shop. So... merchants get found via CJ, AffiliateWindow, etc... and publishers get signed up to all merchants via Viglink, SkimLinks, etc. What has ultimately happened is that now there are 2 intermediaries between the publisher and the merchant, both of whom take a slice. I don't blame posterous for doing this, it is just money left on the table. But the cookie hijack will hurt smaller sites for whom the affiliate scheme revenue is a bloodline.

iamwil 16y ago

Yeah, I don't know how I feel about this either. Especially when they don't tell you.

minouye 16y ago

To confirm for yourself: 1. Go to this post (the result of a Google search for Posterous and Amazon) - http://adeb.posterous.com/ubuntu-one-music-store-vs-amazon http://adeb.posterous.com/ubuntu-one-music-store-vs-amazon 2. Fire up a browser extension/add-on to monitor HTTP requests like HTTP Fox or HTTP Watch. 3. Click the link "here" at the end of the line: 1 install the rpm/deb from here You can clearly see a request to: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d427e97a1567cec6532655f0&v=1&libId=1272666511906.. http://api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d427e97a1567cec....

jamesbritt 16y ago
I was wondering why I wasn't seeing this for myself when I looked at the no-script settings. The code for this is coming from viglink.com. If you disallow or block such scripts you do not see the added affiliate info.

LiveTheDream 16y ago

Didn't LiveJournal do this recently?

huhtenberg 16y ago

Thank you for the heads-up. Just added *.viglink.com to the AdBlock list.

jseliger 16y ago
Ditto.

jarin 16y ago

I don't really see a problem with this as it does not strip off existing affiliate codes, it only adds them if they are not present. I mean, Firefox makes millions off of Google searches and nobody seems to complain about that.

floodfx 16y ago
FF makes money off revenue generated when you search and click on google ad. They do not replace links on content that you generate without telling you. Apples/Oranges my friend... Personally I use posterous as my personal site and I don't appreciate this.
- milkshakes 16y ago
  would you rather have banner ads? they have to make their money somewhere. as long as they're not rewriting existing affiliate links, this is about as unobtrusive as it gets [edit: rewriting the links directly, instead of using a third party that necessarily obfuscates the url would be less obtrusive, but the principle is still the same]
  - csomar 16y ago
    >> they have to make their money somewhere I'm not against Posterous making money online to provide me a free service. However, they should be transparent and clear about it. When I sign up, I want to be notified about this. I'm going to create a blog, publish posts, make readership and stay a good time there; so I want to know whatever thing happens in my blog and not only be surprised about it when it happens. Point 2 is that they didn't have a clear strategy how to monetize themselves (which is crucial since nothing runs for free) from the beginning. Come on, but this is like saying "Get your free domain here" and then telling you that the domain is free, but only if you pay for the hosting :(
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Yep. And for all the handwaving about transparency and 'going forward' there is no real offer of a solution for what they've done to date, in other words, they did it and intend to continue to do it. If they're serious about this they'll switch the feature off for all accounts up to the moment of modifying their terms of service, and make sure that new signups are properly informed. This so called apology seems to mix up the meanings of the words 'unobtrusive' and 'sneaky'.

FluidDjango 16y ago

The OP says that using right-click to copy a link to google.com gives instead a link like: http: // api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d... But I am not experiencing that with a right-click in either Safari/Mac OR FF/Mac. He mentions Safari not being a problem. I find that FF/Mac isn't either. EDIT: Any chance that they have disarmed this after getting all the bad press (at least on HN)?

dschoon 16y ago
Looking at the code, the hooks are DOM listeners that intercept the click to do the redirect. They don't modify the anchor tag, so there's no reason anyone should see them on mouseover or right-click-copy.

DanBlake 16y ago

This isn't anything that uncommon. It doesn't strip off a existing affiliate link either (last i checked) so I dont really get the outrage. The firefox reference quoted earlier seems pretty similar.

invisible 16y ago

There is nothing wrong with adding affiliate links if there is no affiliate link there currently. It is only when it goes horribly wrong (livejournal) that it is a bad thing. Why should they not get paid for a free blogging service. Don't promote free models if you think this is a bad idea.

cgranade 16y ago
There is nothing wrong as long as it is done in a transparent way. Without that transparency, authors are potentially subjecting their readers to click-tracking without being able to give appropriate disclosures.
- invisible 16y ago
  I don't understand how far they need to go to show that they do this without being obnoxious. If they show the affiliate link instead it may confuse users (even in the status bar).
  - cgranade 16y ago
    At least show the authors, so that they can decide how much to disclose to their readers.

dave1619 16y ago

Weird. I posted a simple link, http://www.apple.com/wwdc http://www.apple.com/wwdc on our blog (http://gpapps.com http://gpapps.com), and I get this crazy sequence of forwards: http://clk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=2554&a=1503186&g=17981984&epi=skim725X556513&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Fwwdc http://clk.tradedoubler.com/click?p=2554&a=1503186&g... http://registration.euro.apple.com/cgi-bin/trade-cookie.cgi?aosid=p204&siteid=1503186&program_id=2554&cid=OAS-EMEA-AFF&tduid=3c4d29bc25f11b282b35eba6cf83c3e6&url=http://www.apple.com/wwdc http://registration.euro.apple.com/cgi-bin/trade-cookie.cgi?... http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/?aosid=p204&siteid=1503186&program_id=2554&cid=OAS-EMEA-AFF&tduid=3c4d29bc25f11b282b35eba6cf83c3e6 http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/?aosid=p204&siteid=15031... All I want is my readers to go to the simple http://apple.com/wwdc http://apple.com/wwdc link and not all that junk. Posterous was awesome before this.

deleted 16y ago
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a4agarwal 16y ago
Not sure what's going on there. That site isn't even a Posterous website so I don't understand why you think those redirects are related to Posterous
rantfoil 16y ago
Your blog http://gpapps.com/ http://gpapps.com/ is not hosted on Posterous. This is unrelated to the discussion at hand.
- dave1619 16y ago
  I post on our blog via postereous. Meaning, I email my blog post to posterous and posterous posts on my wordpress account. My original link in my post was http://www.apple.com/wwdc http://www.apple.com/wwdc, but it does this crazy URL forwarding that viglink added in. It clearly affects users.
  - tino 16y ago
    Even if you are somehow using Posterous to post to WordPress (I'm not familiar with Posterous' features), they're not the ones doing your redirect. It actually looks like WordPress is doing the same link affiliation as Posterous. They're using Skimlinks, not VigLink, but the result is the same. (Open a javascript console while on your blog and take a look at the skimlinks function.) FYI, Skimlinks is based in the UK. That probably explains why the original apple.com link bounces through euro.apple.com. As easy as it is to miss, I bet there are a lot of sites doing this now.

icey 16y ago

If this works, doesn't overwrite existing affiliate links and doesn't end up in a bad experience for users then I'm all for it. Posterous has to make money somehow, this is better than banner ads if you ask me.

jrockway 16y ago

Is there a good browser extension that removes all affiliate links? I use Amazon a lot, and I don't feel that Amazon should be paying someone to refer me there, as I already buy everything from Amazon anyway.

bgreenlee 16y ago

If it bothers you, you can add rel="norewrite" to your links (editing as HTML), and it won't rewrite them.

TotlolRon 16y ago

There are two issues here: a. The links. b. The disclosure. Item a is very well debated. What about b? Why aren't users notified of it? If it is a recent change, why wasn't it announced? Etc.

chacha102 16y ago
They should have posted something on their Official Blog. However, there are a lot of things they should have done before releasing this...
- Tichy 16y ago
  You should be informed of this when signing up for a blog.

sounddust 16y ago

I don't think there's anything wrong with this, but why would Amazon, Walmart and others not make this type of linking against their terms of service? It goes against the spirit of affiliate programs, which is an exchange of actual promotion in exchange for commission. The stores aren't gaining anything by allowing it since those links were already published. And it hurts other affiliates, not only by directly taking their commissions (because the most recent affiliate click before purchase counts), but also because it increases the total amount that the stores are paying out. If this catches on, it will force merchants to lower their commission rates, causing them to lose publishers. I think that most merchants will end up forbidding the practice, just as many have forbid bidding against them in PPC campaigns.

greendestiny 16y ago
Also there is no guarantee that in a blog post that people will adhere to the conditions that affiliates impose when they aren't aware they are part of an affiliate program. For instance Amazon requires that the product be described accurately and that it doesn't seem to be endorsed by a third party. Other sites probably have other requirements, though of course I have no idea what Amazon's arrangement with Viglink is.

vishaldpatel 16y ago

There can be only one explanation. Posterous was hacked!

chris24 16y ago

Looks like my /etc/hosts file just got one line longer. :)

mahmud 16y ago
/etc/hosts is for your systems, use AdBlock for the junk ;-)

Tichy 16y ago

Scary how many people thing that kind of thing is OK. Isn't it at the very least very sneaky? "They need to make money somehow" is not an excuse for being sneaky. The only thing in their favor is that customers should probably expect a catch since the service is "free".

daeken 16y ago

As a Posterous user, I'm happy that they did this. It has essentially no effect on the end user, potentially makes them money (to support their excellent, free service), and doesn't kill existing affiliate links. Keep up the good work, guys.

danieldon 16y ago
It has essentially no effect on the end user Sure it does. Users get inconsistent and bizarre behavior when trying to copy and paste links. It would be tremendously confusing to try to copy and paste a link only to find out that what ended up on the clipboard was a completely foreign link that's totally different from what was displayed in the status bar.

a4agarwal 16y ago

Hey guys, Posterous partnered with Viglink.com back in December as an experiment to see if we could generate revenue by adding an affiliate code to links that don't already have one. We chose to work with Viglink because their technology doesn't interfere with the user experience at all. 1. Links in Posterous posts are not edited in any way 2. Viglink javascript intercepts clicks and adds an affiliate code when possible 3. Affiliate codes are not stripped or altered if they already exist 4. Copying links is unchanged Before deploying this change, we tested it heavily to make sure we weren't doing anything that would be visible to the publisher or reader. The fact that it took 4 months for someone to really notice this is a testament to how unobtrusive it is. Some people have commented that we should be sharing revenue back to the users. You are absolutely right. This is something we mentioned to Viglink at our very first meeting with them and something we will add when it's technically possible. Admittedly, we should have announced this on our blog. This was definitely an oversight on our part. Our goal is to be 100% transparent with everything we do at Posterous, especially when it affects your blog and content. From Posterous, we apologize. Going forward we will be sure to notify you of any changes we make to the site. With regards to viglink: we really appreciate all your feedback and we're going to evaluate our use of the service going forward. -Sachin cofounder, posterous.com

ajg1977 16y ago
I'm curious as to whether you considered if this would have any effect on PageRank for content you host? This type of behavior - using javascript to present the user with links different than the googlebot found - seems like the type of thing they frown on.
- pak 16y ago
  Unless googlebot runs a javascript engine, I don't think it will ever be able to find out... unless a human over there reads this and adds this information to their PageRank database. Google does this themselves for their search engine pages, in a way... if you have JavaScript running, there is an onmousedown pingback added for every link in the search results so they know what you click on. The link itself remains apparently unaffected. Check it out if you have Firebug/Web Inspector, each link has e.g. onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','res','1','','012394AFC')".

ALee 16y ago

I for one have no problems with this. I mean these guys host my stuff for free, right? Well, people probably don't know that wordpress.com and a bunch of services that host your content for free also use services very similar to this. Everyone's getting angry at something that has been happening on sites for the past 2-3 years already.

cj 16y ago

You can't click links with the track/scroll ball (which normally opens links in new windows) with Viglink. This is the only thing that bothers me.

greyman 16y ago
Hmm..that's not very good, is it? I for one almost always open links this way...

qq66 16y ago

If this becomes big enough of a revenue model for enough companies, the big affiliate payors will change their TOS and refuse to pay third-party hosters. They're trying to pay the people who promote their content directly.

jarin 16y ago

Let me ask you guys something: would you be upset if HN did this?

deleted 16y ago
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mahmud 16y ago
Not at all upset. It would give me a 30-minute project to circumvent it.
- Tichy 16y ago
  How could you possibly circumvent it? Hacking the HN servers?
  - mahmud 16y ago
    No, my own browser. On the wire, it's just headers followed by \n\n followed by body the size of Content-length :-) HTTP is a child's play.
Tichy 16y ago
Sure, why not?

obxerve 16y ago

First, personally, I think the use of "oversight" as the reason is oversimplifying. You need more than one "oversight" for this to happen the way it has evolved until caught red handed. And the collective of them looks "weird". Second, I sincerely agree that I would love to see Posterous earn a profit for such a great service. But "free is free", not "free if I exploit the links on your blog unaware to you". The blog content is the property of the blog owner (except if the owner explicitly makes it public property). I do not think it wise for Posterous to earn income from the blog content without the blog owner's explicit permission. Third, the response from Posterous does not make it clear the plan to rectify the issue - it is just an apology. The apropriate response, I think, VigLink should be disabled immediately for all blogs. Then each blog owner can be given the option to either opt in (and hopefully gets a cut) or take their content elsewhere. Just some observations.

kylecordes 16y ago

It is on days like that, that I am happy that my blog and company sites are hosted on normal web hosting. I can run whatever blog or CMS I like, whatever versions I like, whatever ads I like (none), whatever affiliates I like (none), and never worry that an otherwise slick platform starts rewriting my links, adding ads, or whatever.

lm741 16y ago

I posted about this a while ago: http://lm741.posterous.com/16766453 http://lm741.posterous.com/16766453 Two easy ways to get around it: url shorteners and redirect services.

wooster 16y ago

Did anyone else here read this and immediately install VigLink on a site?

al_james 16y ago
Yes!

suhail 16y ago

We have a blog on Posterous and we have no issues with these guys doing this--totally support them making money while giving us a great place to post content. I don't honestly see what the big deal is. You can barely tell anything is happening.

ash 16y ago

Update: After several hours after posting this I couldn't repeat "copy link" trick. Neither in Chrome, nor in Internet Explorer. And middle click now works as intended in Chrome. It seems Posterous and/or VigLink changed some of their algorithms. They didn't get rid of affiliate magic (VigLink javascript is still there). But thanks for fixing bugs - the most annoying for me was non-working middle-click in Chrome.

pilif 16y ago

This would really annoy me if I had a posterous blog. In my writing I always intentionally make sure links don't contain any affiliate tags to make a point that I'm not writing about some product with the intention to make money but strictly out of interest or because the product is awesome. If that tag is added for me I lose that advantage in credibility AND I don't earn the money either, but somebody else does with my content and apparently without my knowledge. That is annoying.

avar 16y ago

As of March 4, 2010 posterous has no way in their interface to delete your account. If you want it deleted you should mail vince@posterous.com or help@posterous.com and ask for it to be deleted. I've just done so. Citation: http://inbtwnrthedoors.posterous.com/3604263 http://inbtwnrthedoors.posterous.com/3604263

jacquesm 16y ago
One more thing they should mention in their terms of service.
jorgecastillo 16y ago
I didn't bother to delete my account emailing (didn't even now about that). I just deleted my content (two post), name and avatar. I did this sometime ago. Because of this incident I would certainly do the same now if I was still a Posterous user.
avar 16y ago
Update: Just got my account removed.

jorgecastillo 16y ago

If anyone intends to change his blogging service I recommend http://my.opera.com/ http://my.opera.com/. Although they don't have automatic blog import, so if you have lots of stuff you might want to back it up first and you will have to transfer all your post manually.