By S.
Denise Hoyle
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:
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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