As we approach Black Friday and Cyber Monday, like retailers, most retail-focused affiliate marketers are poised and hopeful to make their big money for the year.
At the same time we celebrate this marks the seventh anniversary of the infamous meeting when the U.S. affiliate community got together in November of 2002 to come to terms over the issue of affiliate marketers using browser plugins to capture commissions. The end result of those meetings was that these publishers could operate with their toolbars and browser plugins as long as they adhere to the Affiliate Networks’ codes of conduct and terms and conditions.
In short, as long as there is user consent and no automatic overwrites of affiliate links, the networks consider the use of browser plugins to be legitimate.
Since then the ever vigilant watchdogs of the industry, e.g. Kellie Stevens, Haiko de Poel Jr., and Ben Edelman, have found numerous times when these browser plugins have violated the network terms. Sometimes it’s an obvious violation of terms where there is sneaky and nefarious adware that is undeniably violating network terms to make easy money. Those are generally rooted out and dispatched by the networks. But other times, it is very visible and public publishers who provide a rewards or cash-back service to their users whose software acts inappropriately. In virtually every case, the networks allow these publishers to clean up the “bugs” and continue operation.
So while we can and should continue to point out when these guys go wrong, there is simply no reason to believe that any affiliate network will ever kick these loyalty publishers out for their transgressions.
It has been seven years now. Can we take a step back? The watchdogs have been shouting loudly for all these years, but it is high time for everybody else take a good hard look at affiliate marketing and what it means for loyalty publishers to continue their use of browser plugins and the impact that it has on merchants and other affiliates.
Have you personally looked at how these software tools operate? I mean really look.
If you’re an affiliate, you owe it to your business to understand how they work.
If you’re a merchant and you allow these publishers to operate in your program, it is mandatory that you understand exactly what’s going on.
This beginning of the holiday season marks the start of a series of posts where I’ll show you exactly how these plugins work and how they interact — and interfere — with merchants’ affiliate programs and other marketing activities, and other affiliate marketers.
Stay tuned for more posts and a series of screencasts where I’ll install these various toolbars and watch them work, while you can look over my virtual shoulder.
In the meantime, people have already been tirelessly documenting specific issues with browser plugins. Read up on the latest at ABestWeb.
