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Some affiliate industry experts and concerned webmasters have recently been
voicing their opposition to a number of popular free software downloads that
divert commissions away from sites actually providing affiliate traffic into
the pockets of the software providers.
The software, known in affiliate circles as thief-ware, pirate-ware, steal-ware
and parasite-ware, is made by close to 20 companies and is used by dozens more.
Thief-ware is typically installed when a user downloads free music or file swapping
software, and the consumer is generally not clearly informed that by downloading
the free software they are allowing their computers to be electronically marked.
Thief-ware allows future purchases via affiliate links to be overwritten and
makes them appear as if they were made through the software provider's links
when they are not, and it continues to redirect commissions on all subsequent
sales - even if the software is uninstalled.
Companies who provide the diversion software include Morpheus, LimeWire, Kazaa,
TopMoxie and BearShare among others. The software has reportedly been downloaded
by tens of millions of Internet surfers, and the makers contend that they're
doing nothing wrong since users agree to their terms when they download the
free software. Amazon.com obviously disagrees with the practice since they recently
terminated Morpheus for violating its policies - great news for their 800,000+
affiliates. However other large affiliate companies, such as Commission Junction,
are so far refusing to take sides in the battle because the diversion practices
have not yet been found to violate any laws.
Some of the companies who provide the software, including LimeWire and Morpheus,
say that they have provided "fixes" for the software so affiliate
commissions are not inadvertently overwritten. The "fixes" supposedly
allow users to choose whether to support their software provider, or in some
cases earn a "rebate" or "reward" for themselves by making
purchases through affiliate links and allowing the links to be overwritten with
the provider's code.
Although the debate over the legality of diverting affiliate commissions continues,
most webmasters who spend a great deal of time and effort fine-tuning their
sites with content to attract users say the practices are unethical at best,
and at worst outright theft. There is little at this point that webmasters can
do to halt the practice of hijacking commissions altogether, other than voice
their opinions to companies they are affiliated with and take steps within their
own web sites to curb the theft.
To protect the affiliate links in your web site, and stop commission thieves
in their tracks, you can disguise all of your affiliate links so they appear
to be links to other pages within your site by creating a "redirection
URL" for each of them. To do this, simply create a new web page that looks
like this:
.<HTML>
.<HEAD>
.<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=affiliate_url">
.<TITLE></TITLE>
.</HEAD>
.<BODY>
.</BODY>
.</HTML>
Replace "affiliate_url" with your actual coded affiliate URL, and
remove the periods at the beginning of each line that are used here for demonstration
purposes. Now you will advertise your disguised affiliate links by directing
visitors to your new URL:
http://www.yourdomainname.com/redirection_page.html
Additionally, you can download a free script from DoxDesk that will inform
your visitors of whether or not they have thief-ware installed on their computer
when they visit your pages. There is also free software available called Ad
Aware from http://www.lavasoftusa.com that will let you know if there are aggressive
advertising or tracking components installed in your computer.
Until there is some kind of consensus and perhaps action taken on the issue,
the best way to fight back against commission hijackers is to protect your site
as best you can, and inform consumers of how thief-ware hurts the small companies
and sites that help make the Internet great - and depend on their affiliate
income to survive.
About the Author:
Written by S. Denise Hoyle
denise@specterweb.com
S. Denise Hoyle is President and co-founder of SpecterWeb.com LLC, a web hosting
and design firm that specializes in helping small businesses create a presence
and earn income on the Internet.
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