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Originally Posted by RawAlex
1) If the average Zango detection rate is, say, 1%, and you have some affiliates that have 10% in their referals, you have something to look at, especially if your ToS says "no toolbar traffic". Programs need to pay much more attention to the sources of their traffic.
2) Zango can't fake "from" information, as that would be a violation of their support of the Truste protocols. Attempts to hide themselves would give an indication that they have something to hide. A nice letter writing campaign to the FTC would follow.
As for links from emails, well.. do you support spam?
3) Programs need to keep the ToS up to date.
4) If you can spot even 10% of what goes through your program and try to teach them, it would likely be enough to tilt the numbers against the malware companies.
5) Velocity tracking on clicks is very important. One thing your affiliate program should pride itself on is not losing track of the surfer, and having an interface that doesn't allow the affiliate code to change on the fly. Cradle to grave tracking is an important thing, so that affiliate codes can't be replaced on the signup page, as an example. Going back and rematching join page hits with signups and looking at IP and other browser indicators is a good way to assure this isn't happening.
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1) i agree, and i am designing this for a large program, so they want to be sure that affiliates will be protected and have the confidence to to promote the program with traffic. major overhaul of their affiliate program technology going with the "build" approach, and i wanted to get as much affiliate feedback to build into the system to give affiliates the commissions and tracking they deserve.
2) alot of spyware/adware that were dropped via DRM exploits probably don't care about TOS.. so those types can certainly fake out the referer with no retribution, especially if they are based in off-shore shell companies, etc. Hackers will break into any system eventually.. the goal is to be realistic that bullettproof is harder, but to atleast put some good defenses to avoid most fraud.
2a) some program owners support opt-in mailing, no one supports SPAM, it's illegal.
3) Yes, and that is for legal reasons so they can justly terminate bad affiliates.
4) yes, and a fraud watcher module is in the design to do datamining of hits and clicks and referers to set thresholds of suspect activity, that allows for the affiliate manager to see what is going on.
5) agreed.. one problem tho, is AOL IP's can change on the fly due to proxy-servers they use.. whereas IP for cable/DSL usually stay the same since the license is active. the biggest challenge is to ensure that the cookie doesn't get overwritten by a pop-up or pop-under, or that software on the user machine doesn't re-write the cookie on the fly.
software such as zango present a "man in the middle" attach scenario that is easier to manipulate the headers and data, vs network/routing which requires more physical access.
all of this stuff goes on the surfer's machine, and they don't see any harm or aware about pop-under or pop-over that shows them the same site or a diff site.. if they are interested and then buy, then they think that the installed program has value.
i think the biggest issue is like how i presented in my first post.. that a surfer visiting an affilaite webmaster page, could have an adware/spyware program popup/popunder a page with aff id embeded and could get the jump on the click... unless some means of tracking referer, or velocity of hits from same IP were used.. that's what i am trying to brainstorm.
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