In a recent, controversial blog post Shawn Hogan has alleged that eBay program managers manipulated him into employing "grey area" techniques by assuring him there wouldn't be consequences for breaking their terms of service. After agreeing, he says managers then began suggesting different fraudulent methods he could employ, and even ways to hide from internal compliance investigators.
Last week Google announced two significant changes to its trademark policies:
Sophisticated URL hijackers seem to have settled on a set of tactics designed to minimize the discoverability of their affiliate ID. They've learned that their ads are discoverable and have been investing in steps to prevent detection of their affiliate ID. While we have seen a wide range of skills, the use of disposable URLs and "front" websites has come to represent "best practice," used by the most sophisticated hijackers.
I had a fun video chat with Jamie Birch of JEB Commerce a few weeks back. We touch on a number of the challenges facing affiliate managers and discuss the details associated with the CSS History Hack and referrer laundering.
We've seen Google testing a number of different display elements in AdWords over the last few weeks.
Recently we've seen affiliates exploit a hole common to web browsers to evade detection from affiliate managers. The hack is known as the CSS History Hack and it exposes information about what sites you visited before. Affiliates use this technique to determine if a web visitor is an affiliate manager (or network representative), and then hide their affiliate ID if the user is an affiliate manager.
We've introduced several new features over the past few months into PoachMark and felt we were overdue for an update:
As expected, the European Court of Justice ruled today that Google is not liable for search ads purchased by competitors on search ads.
On Tuesday, US Federal authorities filed criminal charges against Christopher Kennedy, a developer of cookie stuffing software. While the developer claims to have never engaged in cookie stuffing for his own benefit, he is being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. These charges carry a maximum fine of $250K and 5 years in prison.
