Affiliate Fraud:

• Bogus activity generated by an affiliate in an attempt to generate illegitimate, unearned revenue.

Commonly referred to as Black Hat activity, unfortunately there are lots of tactics that unethical affiliates can use to generate revenue.  Click fraud, redirects, adware, software programs, tool bars, etc.  There are many active affiliates out there that are working to bring ethics to the forefront of the affiliate marketing community.  Some great resources if you’re interested in reading up on what’s going on today in the affiliate industry regarding ethics and fraud, check out:

1. Affiliate Fair Play
2. UNEthical Affiliates Sub-Forum at ABestWeb
3. Parasiteware Sub-Forum at ABestWeb
4. Cookies, Adware, & Spyware Forum at 5 Star Affiliate Programs

____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

Parasite:

• Software that works on a person’s computer, typically without their knowledge or consent and without a visible interface.  It can include software that’s installed along with another application.

Parasites are pretty universally looked down upon amongst white-hat, legit affiliate marketers.  Recently there was a class-action lawsuit against Commission Junction for allowing affiliates using parasitic software to continue earning commissions, so this is serious business.  More specific types of software that tend to fall under this category are malware, spyware, and adware.

Whenever you’re installing a program you’ve downloaded from the internet, always pay attention and look into the Custom Installation options to see what unnecessary features or secondary programs might be automatically installed onto your computer.    I also periodically take a look at my list of installed programs through my Control Panel to make sure nothing that I don’t recognize got past me.  For Mac users check the /Applications/ folder.

____
Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine

 Powered by Max Banner Ads