Quote:
Originally Posted by Dagwolf
There's actually a very good reason for this rule; It's to protect the sponsor against webmaster fraud. If you do a few "test signups" then cancel and conveniently forget to tell them about it afterward, the company could end up paying you unearned commissions. People used to scam sponsors this way a lot; it's part of the reason free trials are disappearing.
Besides, there are other reasons to do a test signup than suspicion of shaving, just as there are other reasons you might fail to be credited for signups... An error in your refcode for instance.
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Of course that makes sense as a reason to put something so stupid in the terms. But if you suspect someone of not paying you, alerting them to the fact that you're about to test kind of negates the whole idea of the test in the first place.
And if they are manually reviewing signups as someone else suggested, shouldn't the sponsor follow the same ethical rule and inform the affiliate that first, they are doing this, and second tell the webmaster there may be a problem with their traffic rather than just dropping signups from their stats without a word?