November 17, 2008
Affiliate Marketing Takes a Big Step Back to 2002
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A lengthy thread is going on over at ABestWeb right now about activities going on with the loyalty program called OneCause.
According to Haiko who has posted numerous screencasts, the OneCause browser plugin is activating automatically and encouraging users to click for earnings, and thereby overwriting other affiliate clicks.
In some cases, the redirect is happening completely automatically with no user action required.
I haven’t tested this myself, but after watching several of these screencasts, the sequence of events, which differs depending on whether there was an identifiable affiliate link clicked on previously (either a network link, or afsrc=1 in the link), is as follows:
- “regular affiliate” link is clicked.
- user ends up on merchant site.
- toolbar activates and encourages the user to click to get their rewards, (this step won’t happen if there was no identifiable affiliate link clicked previously.)
- user is redirected through a second affiliate link, overwriting the first.
It is important to note that this different behavior is not random. This application is coded specifically to behave differently when there was an identifiable affiliate link previously clicked or not.
For example, when plain affiliate links are clicked, the “Earn Contributions” button appears.
(via http://www.abestweb.com/cam/staples/staples.html)
Also, when an affiliate link that’s behind a local redirect, but does have afsrc=1 on the link is clicked, the “Earn Contributions” button appears.
Otherwise, the “Earn Contributions” button doesn’t appear and step three above is skipped. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an affiliate link previously clicked, it may have been, just not identifiable. Or a merchant’s PPC ad may have been clicked. Or an affiliate’s PPC ad may have been clicked. Or the user may have gone directly to the merchant’s site.
It’s been a long time, but my recollection of the Code of Conduct is that as long as the user has agreed to have this software running and actively clicks to get their incentive, it is “ok”. This active click is happening in many of the screencasts that Haiko produced. That doesn’t make this any less controversial, as it has always been.
OneCause very likely believes that they are operating within the letter of the various networks’ respective rules. And they may be correct.
Even though it may be “ok”, the vast majority of the software plugins have opted to go completely dormant when there was another affiliate in the mix, steering clear of the issue almost entirely (except for the case of return visits tracked by cookie).
This falls into the heavily contested area which is what does the end-user want? And even though the argument goes in that direction, of course, the end user should have nothing to do with deciding who gets commissions for a sale.
And there you have the major problem with incentive publishers playing in the same channel as acquisition publishers. The two just don’t mix!
But wait, there’s more to the story.
OneCause is owned by Rakuten, or perhaps even directly by Linkshare. This acquisition happened a little over a year ago, according to posts by Shawn Collins and Kellie Stevens. I’m not certain if Rakuten or Linkshare owns them, but this page on the Linkshare website seems to indicate the latter:
“ok” or not, what are they thinking?
Update:
More reading on the subject:
Hot Charity, or why your favorite coupon site is losing money.
Scott,
Thank you for posting.
Your statement of “For example, when plain affiliate links are clicked, the “Earn Contributions” button appears.” isn't factual, it doesn't always show — only when it's a “super affiliate” — for example see http://www.abestweb.com/cam/wynn/wynn.html or http://www.abestweb.com/cam/mrsbeasleys/mrsbeas... these are just two examples from earlier today but there are many, many others. I only post a few screencasts, I have many more.
I'll refrain from commenting on the remainder of the post.
Thanks for the mention, Mr. Jangro. Always a fun space to play in, isn't it?
Haiko, thanks for pointing out where I missed some details. I looked closely at as many as I could stand and I didn't see any that were behaving any differently than how I summarized it. Even the sunshinerewards example is going through a local redirect with no afsrc=1 on it (unidentifiable affiliate link.)
But I didn't catch the wynn example, and it does appear to be redirecting automatically without the button asking for user action.
But my feeling is on that though is, so what? That's not what you're after here, is it? Those instances of auto-redirects? Do you think they're going to shut them down over a compliance issue? We all know the answer to that.
Truth is, either way, button or no button, they both suck. What user isn't going to hit that button?
That makes this issue is bigger than yet another toolbar out of compliance. It's the problem of channel conflict. These rewards programs simply shouldn't be operating in the same space as affiliates, especially when the user can intervene on a commissionable action and prevent the “regular” affiliate
Add in Linkshare as the owner of this service, and it just gets mind-blowingly strange.
What am I after? Simple, protect the affiliates and merchants who are being taken advantage of or stolen from.
Channel conflict??? Applesauce!!!
Put the parasites on a diff tracking system and it all goes away? No sir, I'll never agree to that. Why? That's not the solution to the problem it just serves to further obfuscate the issue and may lead to even more heinous theft. I mean look at what they have gotten away with so far. How does moving them on to another channel solve the situation? The conflict is not with the channels, it's with the the networks allowing these parasites to violate any and all (if necessary) rule in the book, forget about fiduciary responsibilities or ethics for that matter.
Do I think I'm going to shut them down over compliance? No, of course not …. the networks [all] make money from them them so you can't rely on them doing the right thing when the almighty dollar is involved. That's ok though, there are many avenues to fix this blatant injustice — WATCH!
I don't think separating it out would hide the issue. It's hidden now.
If they're on a different channel, then maybe it can be measured. Merchants and Affiliates have no idea how much the impact is. You're looking at that $221M number, but what's the theft? It's something, but is it huge or miniscule or something in between?
Haiko, how many years have we been looking at videos?
In my opinion, until this whole thing can be measured, nothing can happen.
The networks can measure it, but they won't.
We're both trying to shine light on a problem so that people can see it, just in different ways.
Please don't fight me as well, my friend.
fun. fun.
I'm not fighting with you at all, I'm sorry if you took it that way, not my intention at all. I apologize for any miscommunication. I'm very thankful for the coverage, help and viewpoints.
I don't think it's hidden now, I think the people exposing it are, for whatever their reasons, it isn't helping anyone but the wrong people. My goal is to make sure it gets seen and acted on, because we have been looking at videos for way to long.
As for the measuring, that's very simple to do, it's just a question of standing the test of time and withstand the malarkey … that's where the CJ lawsuit failed. With this … Rakuten is a public co I'm not familiar with jasdaq rules but I'm sure there are some disclosure rules, we can ea silly extrapolate the amount.
But to me it's not the amount, we already know it's in the hundreds of millions, it's the cause and the problem with the industry that not only allows it, encourages and rewards it, fix that, then we can identify solutions.
It might seem “OK” but it offends the spirit of the law. IMHO this is stealing from their own affiliates whether they want to believe it or not. Greed got us in this economic meltdown didn't it? Things they were doing seemed “OK” right?
Well right, that's why I put “ok” in quotes. There is certainly a difference in what is ok from a legal standpoint, an ethical standpoint, and basically from any given own perspective, including your own.
Your opinion that this is stealing is valid and you're certainly entitled to that.
But I am curious as to what law you're referring to.
Upromise has been doing this for years. Did you take a look at their toolbar?
“This falls into the heavily contested area which is what does the end-user want? And even though the argument goes in that direction, of course, the end user should have nothing to do with deciding who gets commissions for a sale. “
You are correct in that this always is brought up - and really shouldn't be. The user or consumer should not play a role in deciding who is compensated.
I don't want to comment directly on the issue regarding Linkshare - as it really wouldn't be appropriate for me to do so - but I will say that there are a large number of toolbars out there who have begun to go in this direction. i.e., It will be important for some kind of middle ground to be reached as to what is acceptable in terms of notification of the end user.
for example… is positive notification acceptable (telling the user that they are sending commission to the toolbar) while negative notification (telling the user that they are not) unacceptable?
The issues of notification vs. redirection will need to be seperated - and treated differently… in my opinion.
If you're following along, this thread has taken an interesting turn. Stephen Avalone, the President or OneCause.com has posted a lengthy response in the thread.
He also clarified my question above, who owns OneCause?
See the thread, and specifically this post to follow from starting <a href=”http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?p=889070#post889070″here.
The recurring bugs / glitch excuse… The no-value BHO cookie dropping saga's continues… shocking… not.
It is definitely time to establish clearer acceptable guidelines. It doesn't seem to be an ethical practice. The customer is being tricked into “doing good” by donating a share of someone's profits to a charity without knowing the person who should be earning a commission is getting nothing. Allowing someone to steal because they give a portion to charity is just wrong and unacceptable in any other scenario.
If this toolbar is ok, the floodgates are open for others. Very interesting to watch how this all plays out.
Thanks for the mention Scott
LinkShare much worse than CJ in this regard, that's why I'm focusing on SAS Merchants more.
Scott, am I too “green” on the affiliate marketing front or is it risky business for the non-technically-astute because of all the affiliate fraud I hear about?
Thanks to Scott and Haiko for informing affiliates & exposing scam sites like onecause.com
These networks that partner with toolbars, adware, etc. seem incapable of thinking even one step down the road.
Either they will be exposed and..eventually…lose their merchant and affiliate partners, Or else the practice will proliferate, further dragging down and marginalizing affiliate marketing as a whole,