7 ms·

Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

146 points by bproper 15y ago

dpark 15y ago
They should disclose this, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's a good way to make a little money that costs the users nothing (except for users who've attempted to use their own affiliate links).
- k-mcgrady 15y ago
  Why do you think they should disclose it? (I'm actually curious). The only users affected are those using their own affiliate links so it would have no effect on the vast majority of users. It seems to me that companies are being asked to disclose more and more these days even when it doesn't really affect users and the company has no reason to disclose the information.
  - wiredd 15y ago
    I think it's smart to have it disclosed somewhere (FAQ) because people that know what affiliate links look like can figure it out themselves anyway by looking at the links.
    - k-mcgrady 15y ago
      But why does that matter? What does anyone gain from knowing that they are using affiliate links? What does anyone lose from not knowing?
      - wiredd 15y ago
        I don't think there is an effective way to hide the use of affiliate links, so they may as well disclose it in their FAQ or TOS just to avoid complaints that they're not being genuine towards their users.
        notJim 15y ago
        I can think of a couple of ways that might (!) work to hide affiliate links: 1. Add a click handler to your anchor tags that redirects to an affiliate-linked version of the href. 2. Modify the url on mousedown (since it happens before click.) I think someone told me this doesn't actually work, but I don't remember for sure.
        k-mcgrady 15y ago
        I don't think they should hide it but I still see no reason to disclose that. I sort of understand your position but I don't understand how not disclosing something that doesn't affect users is disingenuous.
        jbigelow76 15y ago
        Sure there is, if you are talking about the links on the pinterest items users hover over and not the eventual destination url of the merchant. Just use an in house link shortner that does a lookup to the original destination url, identify if an affiliate program exists, modify if needed and complete the redirect.
        jarek 15y ago
        Unless you use an iframe, the affiliated URL will be in the user's address bar at the end of the exercise either way. If you do try to trick that away, there'll still be an HTTP request to the URL unless you proxy the entire page. Someone interested or sufficiently bored will be able to see what is going on.
        jbigelow76 15y ago
        "Effective" masking of links is relative. To some members of the HN community saying that it is impossible to mask the links is the only empirically correct statement. But my aunt and her pinned collection of knitting crap isn't going to break out an HTTP sniffer to see what is going on behind the scenes, the masking of overt monetization so users continue to labor under the delusion that they aren't being marketed to could be all that is needed to be "effective". Camouflage doesn't render a soldier invisible but that doesn't mean it's not effective.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    When you make money off someone, it's generally seen as bad form to be secretive about it.
  - notJim 15y ago
    It could definitely piss off users who have their own affiliate links [someone upthread said the service they're using won't remove existing affiliate links, btw.] That's a small number of users to be sure, but they may be important users: consider people who run taste-making blogs that make money via affiliate links. If a number of popular blogs like this realized their affiliate links were being removed, and complained about it, it could make for some pretty bad PR for pinterest, and it would be well-targeted bad PR, since that's exactly the community pinterest appeals to. I think leaving this undisclosed would be a bad idea, as the rumor mill could start up, and spread misinformation about what's happening with affiliate links. It would also be a good opportunity to get feedback on policy.
- aptwebapps 15y ago
  FTA: "... but also explained that if an affiliate link was in the original pin, Pinterest wouldn’t modify it." If that's true, then there is no cost even for users who have attempted to use their own affiliate links.
cek 15y ago
It appears that Pinterest is violating the Amazon Affiliates operating agreement. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_t=501&ref_=amb_link_84018271_7&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_s=assoc-right-1&pf_rd_r=&pf_rd_i=assoc_join_menu https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement... Specifically: “Prohibited Paid Search Placement” means an advertisement that you purchased through bidding on keywords, search terms, or other identifiers (including Proprietary Terms) or other participation in keyword auctions. “Proprietary Term” means keywords, search terms, or other identifiers that include the word “amazon,” “endless,” “Kindle,” “smallparts,” “myhabit,” or “Javari,” or any other trademark of Amazon or its affiliates ( see a non- exhaustive list of our trademarks), or variations or misspellings of any of those words (e.g., “ammazon,” “amaozn,” “endlss,” “enldess,” “smalparts,” “kindel,” and “javary”). “Redirecting Link” means a link that sends users indirectly to the Amazon Site via an intermediate site or webpage and without requiring the user to click on a link or take some other affirmative action on that intermediate site or webpage. “Search Engine” means Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine, portal, sponsored advertising service, or other search or referral service, or any site that participates in any of their respective networks. Pinterest falls under both "Redirecting Link" and "Search Engine" parts of this clause. In addition: Section 10 requires affiliates sites to state they are an affilliate: You must, however, clearly state the following on your site: “[Insert your name] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to [insert the applicable site name (amazon.com, endless.com, smallparts.com or myhabit.com)].”
- shingen 15y ago
  Depends on if they have a business agreement with Amazon that excludes them from those terms. At their size, they very well might. Same way large AdSense customers are treated completely different and have their own contracts with Google.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  You're totally off base on the first part. 1) Prohibited paid search placement: This only applies to bidding on placement on search engines. Pinterest has not bid on terms on their own site, so that section has no relevance even if Pinterest itself could be considered a search engine. 2) Redirecting links: This prohibits placing links that point to an intermediate page that then redirects to Amazon. Pinterest is linking directly to Amazon (with affiliate identifiers in the query string), not to an intermediate page that performs any redirection.
rgrieselhuber 15y ago
I don't really see the problem here. At most it should be an update to their TOS and call it a day.
gokhan 15y ago
The article is almost 1000 words, but the title of HN post is more than enough to describe what's going on.
- rokhayakebe 15y ago
  He could've just pinned that photo showing the link.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  That's called "a good headline" in journalism.
mbertrand 15y ago
Don't see why they should/would disclose this to users. Does not affect the end users experience unless they are in fact adding their own affiliate links. I find the point the author made about bloggers disclosing the use of affiliate links a stretch. I can see his point but pinterest is not a blog, they're a business and want to/should produce revenue.
atldev 15y ago
This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say. I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actually read an at-a-glance TOS summary. What if you could parse a website's TOS and generate the summary? Startup idea :)
- lukeschlather 15y ago
  There's no understood expectation that Pinterest is going to leave any links you upload to them alone - they are responsible for the data just as much as you are. I find this much more tolerable than Facebook and most search engines' practice of clicking you through an encoded link, which adds latency for no good reason.
  - nickbarnwell 15y ago
    The reason most do that is to rob the site you're visiting of context about the page you're just on. If I click through from a friend's Facebook profile they can't see the referrer URL is, for example, facebook.com/nickbarnwell
  - nbm 15y ago
    In Facebook's case, this is to protect the user from potentially giving away information about themselves in their Referer header and from potentially malicious links that we didn't have enough information on at display (or email) time, but which we now have enough information to know it is malicious. This is explained in more detail at https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/link-shim-protecting-the-people-who-use-facebook-from-malicious-urls/10150492832835766 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/link-shim-p...
- k-mcgrady 15y ago
  A bit off topic but I think this is nothing link the Path address book issue. I think a lot of the privacy debates in the last few months have been blown out of proportion but when I saw the Path news I immediately closed my account. Path storing details of all my contacts on their servers without my permission is a huge abuse of my trust. This doesn't seem anything like the Path debate in my opinion. I do agree that TOS language should be simplified. Something like a simple bulleted list explaining each point of the TOS simply.
danneu 15y ago
> Not disclosing this modification is putting individual stores at a disadvantage when they and their customers are putting in the work of adding pins. I find it hard to sympathize for the trivial "work of adding pins" when it's Pinterest that created the universe in which those pins even exist and the community that gives them value. > One specific, problematic issue is that when individual online stores pin their own content, it is unlikely they would insert an affiliate code. But if the store has an affiliate program, it is highly likely that those links now will have an affiliate code in them that gives Pinterest a percentage of any sales. It's also hard to sympthasize with online stores having to cough up some money for marketing directly to Pinterest's community.
- olefoo 15y ago
  Relatively few people here have a problem with Pinterest making money; the problem they do have, is making money by modifying the links the users are posting without disclosing that modification. I'd be somewhat squicked if I saw that paragraph in the T&C when I was signing up, but at least I'd know and be able to decide if it was worth it. But by going ahead and not putting that disclosure anywhere; Pinterest has shown that they don't respect their users. And that may be somewhat poisonous to their prospects (or not, Facebook being the prime example).
- AJ007 15y ago
  Easy solution for the store, terminate the affiliate relationship.
mcu 15y ago
This is what deal forums have done since time immemorial (1996-ish).
thegyppo 15y ago
I have absolutely no issues with this: 1. It's the most scalable way for them to generate revenue without shoving ads down your throat. 2. Skimlinks doesn't "modify" your links, they simply put it through a redirect to see if it affiliates. The link you've submitted to Pinterest will likely stay as is. 3. If users submit affiliate links already, then services like Viglink/Skimlinks don't overwrite your cookie (i.e. Reaffiliate it) so those users will continue to see revenue.
- loceng 15y ago
  I would think the affiliate programs would be the ones who would have an issue. No affiliate link to adding one costs them profits they wouldn't otherwise have to give away. What's Pinterest going to do if this option doesn't exist, remove the links? No.. they could change the display algorithm to display links with their affiliate code more often, but that may mess with quality of content and click-rates..
  - VonLipwig 15y ago
    I don't see why affiliate programs would have an issue here. If Pinterest didn't exist they wouldn't be getting the traffic. Pinterest has every right to monetize their website in the least intrusive way possible. These referal links are transparent and provide a neat way to get some income. What suprises me is how they are giving away 25% of their profits by using a third-party service instead of making something themselves.
    - Jare 15y ago
      They may have an issue if this completely changes the scale, demographics, and therefore the economics of their affiliate program. It's one thing to have and affiliate program for bloggers that may bring dozens or hundreds of interested viewers, vs Pinterest bringing thousands or millions of casual viewers. Some (many?) programs will need to adjust their terms for this practice, or they may face one of those Groupon-like situations where a family bakery needs to serve 100k muffins, at a loss, in a weekend.
feint 15y ago
I don't see this as a problem at all. From a user perspective, I would much rather see this than flashy banner ads polluting the experience. The same thing happens on sites such as RetailMeNot. Good on Pinterest for monetizing and they should continue being aggressive and explore other opportunities.
spacemanaki 15y ago
Does Stack Overflow also do this, at least with Amazon links? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong because I wouldn't want to spread misinformation. But IIRC Amazon links turn into something like "rads.stackoverflow.com/..." which I always assumed were affiliate. I think it's pretty reasonable, as others have pointed out.
- ak86 15y ago
  Yup, Stack Overflow does do that: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-inserting-stack-overflow-affiliate-into-all-amazon-book-links http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-inserting... and http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising-experiment/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tpiddy 15y ago
I remember reading Posterous is using skimlink's competitor Viglink http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309403 The real question is WHY would companies let Posterous or Pinterest become affiliates at all? Where are the incremental sales? It makes sense for businesses to encourage USERS to become affiliates and promote their products, but allowing user-gen site to monetize their users' links does not encourage their users to link and promote products more.
- matthewcieplak 15y ago
  If you disallow affiliate links, publishers will find a store that allows them. A piece of their traffic, especially for digital downloads, comes from referral links in contextual ads and elsewhere. If they didn't offer a cut, people would just link to iTunes instead.
nhangen 15y ago
Really surprised that no one has a problem with this. How would we feel if PG turned every Apple, Amazon, or other ecommerce link into an affiliate link, with our name pinned to it? Horrible decision on their part, and I think it's going to bite them in the ass when the average user gets wind of it.
- kreutz 15y ago
  The average "Pinterest User" has no idea what an affiliate link is.
- adambyrtek 15y ago
  Well, if you claim that it's such a horrible thing you should at least try to explain why. Personally, I wouldn't mind if Amazon links from HN had an affiliate code attached.
rapind 15y ago
It seems like almost no one here takes issue with this... Would it be cool if Google inserted affiliate codes in it's search results (those that apply)? Slippery slope perhaps? Is it really that different?
- colinsidoti 15y ago
  Even on Google, that doesn't affect the user at all. I wouldn't mind. However, it would definitely piss off the affiliate program...who should just boot Google from their program. Now that I think about it more, that's the real problem with this. The businesses are most likely getting sales anyway, and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale. Since pinterest can't censor links to these merchants, they'll probably end up getting booted from their programs.
  - jbigelow76 15y ago
    "and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale." You can't be serious. The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed. Your logic would seem to preclude any affiliate program in existence. If I have a blog reviewing my favorite books, and being a book lover I want to make it easy for people to enjoy books I recommend so I go ahead and place links to Amazon. Should Amazon say "well you we're going to link to us regardless, so you aren't eligible."
    - colinsidoti 15y ago
      You're right, it is ridiculous, but if you were a merchant why would you want to pay out Pinterest? If you didn't pay Pinterest for their leads, wouldn't you still get the same number of sales? Currently, Pinterest doesn't have a foot to stand on if the affiliate programs simply kick them out. They can do things to bias certain merchants, but that's a riskier play.
    - seizetheday 15y ago
      "The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed." That's true, the sale would never had been generated if Pinterest never existed. But the key point here is that the sale would still have been generated even if Pinterest was dropped from the affiliate program. The user generated link would still exist. As a blogger you could say well I'm not going to link to any Amazon products now. Pinterest doesn't have that luxury. They could remove any links that they can't monetize but users would revolt since they are the ones adding the content and links.
gst 15y ago
DuckDuckGo (the search engine) is doing the same. E.g., search for something that returns Amazon search result, and the link to Amazon will have their affiliate tag included. A positive point, however, is that they are open about this on their website: http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216405-making-money http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216405-m...
- z303 15y ago
  Metafilter also does something similar with any Amazon link and are open about it, which does seem the best way to handle it http://faq.metafilter.com/#51 http://faq.metafilter.com/#51 This seems
- rplnt 15y ago
  It is not really the same as DDG is providing the links itself while pinterest is modifying user submitted links. However, I have no problem with either of them. It would be nice of they said it in their FAQ (or wherever) as DDG did.
sbierwagen 15y ago
15 days ago, in a PR piece about Pinterest, I wondered just how, if at all, it was different from Tumblr. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501938 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501938 Well, now I know.
- nollidge 15y ago
  It's not enormously different, but A) you're encouraged to break things up by category ("Clothing", "Art", "Household Items"), B) you can follow all of a person's categories or just some of them, C) it's got a strongly consistent aesthetic - Tumblr is far more customizable (think Facebook vs. Myspace), D) grid-based layout rather than vertical blog style (though Tumblr allows this as well)
CiaranR 15y ago
Skimlinks has officially responded - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3566369 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3566369
vardy 15y ago
Has facebook experimented with converting links into aff links when possible? How much would that be worth...

146 points by bproper 15y ago

dpark 15y ago

They should disclose this, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's a good way to make a little money that costs the users nothing (except for users who've attempted to use their own affiliate links).

k-mcgrady 15y ago
Why do you think they should disclose it? (I'm actually curious). The only users affected are those using their own affiliate links so it would have no effect on the vast majority of users. It seems to me that companies are being asked to disclose more and more these days even when it doesn't really affect users and the company has no reason to disclose the information.
- wiredd 15y ago
  I think it's smart to have it disclosed somewhere (FAQ) because people that know what affiliate links look like can figure it out themselves anyway by looking at the links.
  - k-mcgrady 15y ago
    But why does that matter? What does anyone gain from knowing that they are using affiliate links? What does anyone lose from not knowing?
    - wiredd 15y ago
      I don't think there is an effective way to hide the use of affiliate links, so they may as well disclose it in their FAQ or TOS just to avoid complaints that they're not being genuine towards their users.
      - notJim 15y ago
        I can think of a couple of ways that might (!) work to hide affiliate links: 1. Add a click handler to your anchor tags that redirects to an affiliate-linked version of the href. 2. Modify the url on mousedown (since it happens before click.) I think someone told me this doesn't actually work, but I don't remember for sure.
      - k-mcgrady 15y ago
        I don't think they should hide it but I still see no reason to disclose that. I sort of understand your position but I don't understand how not disclosing something that doesn't affect users is disingenuous.
      - jbigelow76 15y ago
        Sure there is, if you are talking about the links on the pinterest items users hover over and not the eventual destination url of the merchant. Just use an in house link shortner that does a lookup to the original destination url, identify if an affiliate program exists, modify if needed and complete the redirect.
        jarek 15y ago
        Unless you use an iframe, the affiliated URL will be in the user's address bar at the end of the exercise either way. If you do try to trick that away, there'll still be an HTTP request to the URL unless you proxy the entire page. Someone interested or sufficiently bored will be able to see what is going on.
        jbigelow76 15y ago
        "Effective" masking of links is relative. To some members of the HN community saying that it is impossible to mask the links is the only empirically correct statement. But my aunt and her pinned collection of knitting crap isn't going to break out an HTTP sniffer to see what is going on behind the scenes, the masking of overt monetization so users continue to labor under the delusion that they aren't being marketed to could be all that is needed to be "effective". Camouflage doesn't render a soldier invisible but that doesn't mean it's not effective.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  When you make money off someone, it's generally seen as bad form to be secretive about it.
- notJim 15y ago
  It could definitely piss off users who have their own affiliate links [someone upthread said the service they're using won't remove existing affiliate links, btw.] That's a small number of users to be sure, but they may be important users: consider people who run taste-making blogs that make money via affiliate links. If a number of popular blogs like this realized their affiliate links were being removed, and complained about it, it could make for some pretty bad PR for pinterest, and it would be well-targeted bad PR, since that's exactly the community pinterest appeals to. I think leaving this undisclosed would be a bad idea, as the rumor mill could start up, and spread misinformation about what's happening with affiliate links. It would also be a good opportunity to get feedback on policy.
aptwebapps 15y ago
FTA: "... but also explained that if an affiliate link was in the original pin, Pinterest wouldn’t modify it." If that's true, then there is no cost even for users who have attempted to use their own affiliate links.

cek 15y ago

It appears that Pinterest is violating the Amazon Affiliates operating agreement. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_t=501&ref_=amb_link_84018271_7&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_s=assoc-right-1&pf_rd_r=&pf_rd_i=assoc_join_menu https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement... Specifically: “Prohibited Paid Search Placement” means an advertisement that you purchased through bidding on keywords, search terms, or other identifiers (including Proprietary Terms) or other participation in keyword auctions. “Proprietary Term” means keywords, search terms, or other identifiers that include the word “amazon,” “endless,” “Kindle,” “smallparts,” “myhabit,” or “Javari,” or any other trademark of Amazon or its affiliates ( see a non- exhaustive list of our trademarks), or variations or misspellings of any of those words (e.g., “ammazon,” “amaozn,” “endlss,” “enldess,” “smalparts,” “kindel,” and “javary”). “Redirecting Link” means a link that sends users indirectly to the Amazon Site via an intermediate site or webpage and without requiring the user to click on a link or take some other affirmative action on that intermediate site or webpage. “Search Engine” means Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine, portal, sponsored advertising service, or other search or referral service, or any site that participates in any of their respective networks. Pinterest falls under both "Redirecting Link" and "Search Engine" parts of this clause. In addition: Section 10 requires affiliates sites to state they are an affilliate: You must, however, clearly state the following on your site: “[Insert your name] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to [insert the applicable site name (amazon.com, endless.com, smallparts.com or myhabit.com)].”

shingen 15y ago
Depends on if they have a business agreement with Amazon that excludes them from those terms. At their size, they very well might. Same way large AdSense customers are treated completely different and have their own contracts with Google.
dangrossman 15y ago
You're totally off base on the first part. 1) Prohibited paid search placement: This only applies to bidding on placement on search engines. Pinterest has not bid on terms on their own site, so that section has no relevance even if Pinterest itself could be considered a search engine. 2) Redirecting links: This prohibits placing links that point to an intermediate page that then redirects to Amazon. Pinterest is linking directly to Amazon (with affiliate identifiers in the query string), not to an intermediate page that performs any redirection.

rgrieselhuber 15y ago

I don't really see the problem here. At most it should be an update to their TOS and call it a day.

gokhan 15y ago

The article is almost 1000 words, but the title of HN post is more than enough to describe what's going on.

rokhayakebe 15y ago
He could've just pinned that photo showing the link.
mattdeboard 15y ago
That's called "a good headline" in journalism.

mbertrand 15y ago

Don't see why they should/would disclose this to users. Does not affect the end users experience unless they are in fact adding their own affiliate links. I find the point the author made about bloggers disclosing the use of affiliate links a stretch. I can see his point but pinterest is not a blog, they're a business and want to/should produce revenue.

atldev 15y ago

This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say. I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actually read an at-a-glance TOS summary. What if you could parse a website's TOS and generate the summary? Startup idea :)

lukeschlather 15y ago
There's no understood expectation that Pinterest is going to leave any links you upload to them alone - they are responsible for the data just as much as you are. I find this much more tolerable than Facebook and most search engines' practice of clicking you through an encoded link, which adds latency for no good reason.
- nickbarnwell 15y ago
  The reason most do that is to rob the site you're visiting of context about the page you're just on. If I click through from a friend's Facebook profile they can't see the referrer URL is, for example, facebook.com/nickbarnwell
- nbm 15y ago
  In Facebook's case, this is to protect the user from potentially giving away information about themselves in their Referer header and from potentially malicious links that we didn't have enough information on at display (or email) time, but which we now have enough information to know it is malicious. This is explained in more detail at https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/link-shim-protecting-the-people-who-use-facebook-from-malicious-urls/10150492832835766 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/link-shim-p...
k-mcgrady 15y ago
A bit off topic but I think this is nothing link the Path address book issue. I think a lot of the privacy debates in the last few months have been blown out of proportion but when I saw the Path news I immediately closed my account. Path storing details of all my contacts on their servers without my permission is a huge abuse of my trust. This doesn't seem anything like the Path debate in my opinion. I do agree that TOS language should be simplified. Something like a simple bulleted list explaining each point of the TOS simply.

danneu 15y ago

> Not disclosing this modification is putting individual stores at a disadvantage when they and their customers are putting in the work of adding pins. I find it hard to sympathize for the trivial "work of adding pins" when it's Pinterest that created the universe in which those pins even exist and the community that gives them value. > One specific, problematic issue is that when individual online stores pin their own content, it is unlikely they would insert an affiliate code. But if the store has an affiliate program, it is highly likely that those links now will have an affiliate code in them that gives Pinterest a percentage of any sales. It's also hard to sympthasize with online stores having to cough up some money for marketing directly to Pinterest's community.

olefoo 15y ago
Relatively few people here have a problem with Pinterest making money; the problem they do have, is making money by modifying the links the users are posting without disclosing that modification. I'd be somewhat squicked if I saw that paragraph in the T&C when I was signing up, but at least I'd know and be able to decide if it was worth it. But by going ahead and not putting that disclosure anywhere; Pinterest has shown that they don't respect their users. And that may be somewhat poisonous to their prospects (or not, Facebook being the prime example).
AJ007 15y ago
Easy solution for the store, terminate the affiliate relationship.

mcu 15y ago

This is what deal forums have done since time immemorial (1996-ish).

thegyppo 15y ago

I have absolutely no issues with this: 1. It's the most scalable way for them to generate revenue without shoving ads down your throat. 2. Skimlinks doesn't "modify" your links, they simply put it through a redirect to see if it affiliates. The link you've submitted to Pinterest will likely stay as is. 3. If users submit affiliate links already, then services like Viglink/Skimlinks don't overwrite your cookie (i.e. Reaffiliate it) so those users will continue to see revenue.

loceng 15y ago
I would think the affiliate programs would be the ones who would have an issue. No affiliate link to adding one costs them profits they wouldn't otherwise have to give away. What's Pinterest going to do if this option doesn't exist, remove the links? No.. they could change the display algorithm to display links with their affiliate code more often, but that may mess with quality of content and click-rates..
- VonLipwig 15y ago
  I don't see why affiliate programs would have an issue here. If Pinterest didn't exist they wouldn't be getting the traffic. Pinterest has every right to monetize their website in the least intrusive way possible. These referal links are transparent and provide a neat way to get some income. What suprises me is how they are giving away 25% of their profits by using a third-party service instead of making something themselves.
  - Jare 15y ago
    They may have an issue if this completely changes the scale, demographics, and therefore the economics of their affiliate program. It's one thing to have and affiliate program for bloggers that may bring dozens or hundreds of interested viewers, vs Pinterest bringing thousands or millions of casual viewers. Some (many?) programs will need to adjust their terms for this practice, or they may face one of those Groupon-like situations where a family bakery needs to serve 100k muffins, at a loss, in a weekend.

feint 15y ago

I don't see this as a problem at all. From a user perspective, I would much rather see this than flashy banner ads polluting the experience. The same thing happens on sites such as RetailMeNot. Good on Pinterest for monetizing and they should continue being aggressive and explore other opportunities.

spacemanaki 15y ago

Does Stack Overflow also do this, at least with Amazon links? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong because I wouldn't want to spread misinformation. But IIRC Amazon links turn into something like "rads.stackoverflow.com/..." which I always assumed were affiliate. I think it's pretty reasonable, as others have pointed out.

ak86 15y ago
Yup, Stack Overflow does do that: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-inserting-stack-overflow-affiliate-into-all-amazon-book-links http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-inserting... and http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising-experiment/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising...

deleted 15y ago

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tpiddy 15y ago

I remember reading Posterous is using skimlink's competitor Viglink http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309403 The real question is WHY would companies let Posterous or Pinterest become affiliates at all? Where are the incremental sales? It makes sense for businesses to encourage USERS to become affiliates and promote their products, but allowing user-gen site to monetize their users' links does not encourage their users to link and promote products more.

matthewcieplak 15y ago
If you disallow affiliate links, publishers will find a store that allows them. A piece of their traffic, especially for digital downloads, comes from referral links in contextual ads and elsewhere. If they didn't offer a cut, people would just link to iTunes instead.

nhangen 15y ago

Really surprised that no one has a problem with this. How would we feel if PG turned every Apple, Amazon, or other ecommerce link into an affiliate link, with our name pinned to it? Horrible decision on their part, and I think it's going to bite them in the ass when the average user gets wind of it.

kreutz 15y ago
The average "Pinterest User" has no idea what an affiliate link is.
adambyrtek 15y ago
Well, if you claim that it's such a horrible thing you should at least try to explain why. Personally, I wouldn't mind if Amazon links from HN had an affiliate code attached.

rapind 15y ago

It seems like almost no one here takes issue with this... Would it be cool if Google inserted affiliate codes in it's search results (those that apply)? Slippery slope perhaps? Is it really that different?

colinsidoti 15y ago
Even on Google, that doesn't affect the user at all. I wouldn't mind. However, it would definitely piss off the affiliate program...who should just boot Google from their program. Now that I think about it more, that's the real problem with this. The businesses are most likely getting sales anyway, and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale. Since pinterest can't censor links to these merchants, they'll probably end up getting booted from their programs.
- jbigelow76 15y ago
  "and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale." You can't be serious. The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed. Your logic would seem to preclude any affiliate program in existence. If I have a blog reviewing my favorite books, and being a book lover I want to make it easy for people to enjoy books I recommend so I go ahead and place links to Amazon. Should Amazon say "well you we're going to link to us regardless, so you aren't eligible."
  - colinsidoti 15y ago
    You're right, it is ridiculous, but if you were a merchant why would you want to pay out Pinterest? If you didn't pay Pinterest for their leads, wouldn't you still get the same number of sales? Currently, Pinterest doesn't have a foot to stand on if the affiliate programs simply kick them out. They can do things to bias certain merchants, but that's a riskier play.
  - seizetheday 15y ago
    "The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed." That's true, the sale would never had been generated if Pinterest never existed. But the key point here is that the sale would still have been generated even if Pinterest was dropped from the affiliate program. The user generated link would still exist. As a blogger you could say well I'm not going to link to any Amazon products now. Pinterest doesn't have that luxury. They could remove any links that they can't monetize but users would revolt since they are the ones adding the content and links.

gst 15y ago

DuckDuckGo (the search engine) is doing the same. E.g., search for something that returns Amazon search result, and the link to Amazon will have their affiliate tag included. A positive point, however, is that they are open about this on their website: http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216405-making-money http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216405-m...

z303 15y ago
Metafilter also does something similar with any Amazon link and are open about it, which does seem the best way to handle it http://faq.metafilter.com/#51 http://faq.metafilter.com/#51 This seems
rplnt 15y ago
It is not really the same as DDG is providing the links itself while pinterest is modifying user submitted links. However, I have no problem with either of them. It would be nice of they said it in their FAQ (or wherever) as DDG did.

sbierwagen 15y ago

15 days ago, in a PR piece about Pinterest, I wondered just how, if at all, it was different from Tumblr. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501938 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501938 Well, now I know.

nollidge 15y ago
It's not enormously different, but A) you're encouraged to break things up by category ("Clothing", "Art", "Household Items"), B) you can follow all of a person's categories or just some of them, C) it's got a strongly consistent aesthetic - Tumblr is far more customizable (think Facebook vs. Myspace), D) grid-based layout rather than vertical blog style (though Tumblr allows this as well)

CiaranR 15y ago

Skimlinks has officially responded - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3566369 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3566369

vardy 15y ago

Has facebook experimented with converting links into aff links when possible? How much would that be worth...