From your
blog post about Zango and AdultFriendFinder..hope there isn't already a thread about this but I couldn't find one.
Anyway, there is a whole lot more about all this. It seems that many in the adult industry are just hearing about adware for the first time. Somewhat surprising considering how much money is made by some in the adult industry either through ad displays or distributing adware. An adult affiliate happened to have zango on his computer, clicked through one of his own links and got a pop up. Much to his surprise and outrage. He wasn't out there doing any type of testing. It was all new to him and a complete shock. And one he wasn't too happy about. All heck soon broke out on several adult forums. Reading through some of the posts that were going on, I flashed back to mainstream affiliate marketing 5 or 6 years ago. I actually joined one of adult forums where it all started to do a bit of education because of the amount of misinformation that was being posted because of a lack of education and understanding. And it didn't take long for the affiliate who started all of it to get a phone call from Zango.
Seems Zango wasn't too pleased that it was said the AFF aff ID belonged to them. AFF has an in-house program and when the aff link is used as the AD URL with Zango, then you can't really know WHO the account belongs too unless you can document the same ID elsewhere. So Zango, being well Zango, sends out an email to at least some of their ZangoCash partners (those are the folks who distribute Zango software). They go into great detail about all the adult forum posts, no foul play by Zango...their software doesn't touch cookies and then they do one of the most incredible acts I've seen from an adware company doing a CYA PR blitz in a long time.....
They boldly point the finger directly at AFF stating very clearly without room for any misinterpretations that the aff ID does not belong to them but belongs to
AFF! I pick myself up off the floor from laughing hysterically for about 15 minutes after reading a copy of the email they sent out. Now mind you, many adult webmasters distribute Zango..so this email potentially went out to affiliates of AFF. If those adult affiliates hadn't caught the hoopula on one of the adult forums, they sure knew about then. And Zango sure layed the blame directly at the feet of one of their advertisers. Hmmmm.....of course if any of their advertiers read through the fine print of their TOS with Zango, well it pretty much says that is the case.
I'm feeling none to sympathetic for AFF though. I know from my own testing that AFF affiliate links show up in many adware applications. As do all their sister mainstream dating sites and Cams.com. In my subjective classification of merchants, they are a program I think of as having heavy adware activity in their program.
When the Zango email gets publicly posted, things crank up a bit more. The possibilty that AFF themselves (they have an inhouse program which is the norm in adult) is running the ads hadn't occurred to many evidently. AFF has been very quiet during all of this. Then a few days ago, the next incredible event happens (proving yet again that things are just DIFFERENT in mainstream and adult affiliate marketing).....
AFF puts out a public statement addressing the hoopla. You have to realize that AFF is a powerhouse program in adult and like many adult programs their payouts aren't trivial. Right now they are paying something like $105/sign up. AFF publicly admits that yes indeed that aff ID running through Zango belongs to them! I roll around on the floor for another 15 minutes laughing hysterically. Not only that they admit freely that they are doing the same thing with a 'few' other spyware (wrong terminology on AFF's part) programs. Their claim is that they've had no choice but to bid on their own trademark to keep competitor's from popping on their site, which would also divert comissions away from traffic delivered to them by their affiliates. So in part, this was a move on their part to protect their affiliates. But they are working with their IT folks (or whoever and spyware guys) to figure out a way NOT to inadvertently take commissions from their affiliates.
Paint me silly, but I'm not buying it and neither or many adult webmasters. The concern is a legitimate one and something I've discussed with many mainstream merchants about. Sales are lost when competitors pop on your site. For a merchant that is willing to buy keywords to protect pops from happening on their site, then fine. The CPV costs with Zango are pretty afterall, especially when you are paying out $105 a conversion to your affs. And other adware companies are much cheapier than Zango. But who is putting the gun to the head of the merchant/sponsor saying the Ad URL has to be an affiliate link with a publisher ID that belongs to them?? No one. And any merchant who is truly that clueless about tracking shouldn't have a program. But AFF is too big of a player for me to believe that is the case. And the manager of the AFF reports to be a co-owner of the FriendFinder.com Network. All they have to do is use a straight link to AFF as the Ad URL. If they want/need to measure the traffic metrics coming through Zango, then Zango offers a nice handy pass through tool for their Advertisers which will automatically append a MetricsDirect identification tag to all their ad campaigns. No reason AFF had to overwrite their own affiliate's tracking with their own making themselves the last aff link in.
It sure screams shaving to me. And this isn't limited to the adult industry. I'm seeing an increasing incidents of Merchants web sites showing through adware in mainstream. They are popping on their own sites, their affiliate's sites and their competitors. There have been cases where I have been able to conclusive document that ID belonged to the Merchant. I've seen cases where the 'known' program is run on a major network, but the link coming through the adware is in-house tracking software. Is the Merchant quietly running an in house program to a select few? Possible, that does happen. Or does the ID belong to them? Also quite possible. In the case of mainstream Merchants they are not only saving themselves the commission but also the Network fee. Sometimes I'll see the Merchant's URL tagged as some specific ad channel/campaign NOT affiliate marketing. The question then arises what is that particular companies policy regarding paying out affs if the last click in was their own ad efforts. There is more than one merchant who do address that in their TOS. Others do it but don't say it. Others will pay the aff.
Merchants using adware to shave affiliate commissions does indeed happen. There will always be people in biz willing to do such things. The increase I've seen in Merchant's who are using adware themselves is why I have a complete section for it on my service in the affiliate reports area. Minimally it begs the question that if a Merchant uses adware themselves then what is their policy about their affiliates using it. It is a topic that many mainstream affiliates seem to not realize is happening.
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