Cookie-Stuffing Targeting Major Affiliate Merchants
Knightos;3293 Wrote:Overview and Summary
Affiliate tracking systems are intended to pay commissions to independent web sites ("affiliates") when users click through these sites' links to affiliate merchants. Merchants are not intended to pay commission when users merely visit affiliates' sites. Instead, commission ordinarily only becomes payable in the event that a user 1) visits an affiliate's site, 2) clicks through an affiliate link to a merchant, and 3) makes a purchase from that merchant.
However, some affiliates use "cookie-stuffing" methods to cause affiliate merchants' tracking systems to conclude that a user has clicked through a tracking link (and to pay commissions accordingly) even if the user has not actually clicked through any such link. If the user subsequently makes a purchase from that merchant -- immediately, or within the "return days" period specified by the merchant's affiliate program -- the affiliate then receives a commission on the user's purchase.
This page presents the incentives that have allowed cookie-stuffing to continue, and captures selected examples of cookie-stuffing.
[URL="http://www.benedelman.org/cookiestuffing/#examples"]http://www.benedelman.org/cookiestuffing/#examples[/URL]
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