CJ and TD may be bad, but here's the NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

[betterHalf]

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Having finally replaced of all my Commission Junction and TradeDoubler links with equivalents provided by eithical networks across my entire netwrok of sites (no small job), a sudden thought occurred to me - probably not of much interest to you PPC heros, but potentially of interest to the SEO boys.

In a previous post the concept of dynamic link rewriting by scumware products was discussed, and how it could effectively turn your entire site into a site promoting the scumware party's affiliate links. And the question was asked, why don't the networks offer an 'encrypted' mode of links in much the same way that PayPal does - it would stop 'link molesting' and no one with an honest business could possibly object to it. There will, of course, be no answer from Tradedoubler or Commission Junction on this one, but even worse...

...here is the 'nightmare scenario' for affiliate marketing.

(1) Microsoft starts an affiliate program.
(2) Microsoft releases new whizzy version of IE.
(3) New version of IE is engineered to automatically replace our affiliate stuff with equivalent MS stuff.
(4) Popup abilities of the new browser are severely restricted to only allow microsod revenue bearing popups.

It can not be frigged, it can not be stopped, it doesn't need to eat, or sleep, it will just...... terminate your affiliate business, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 1/4 days a year.

And our only option then will be to deny access to IE browsers... 90% plus of the market.

First Microserf "Hey dude, and we could maintain a database of websites, products and synonyms - before we show the window, lets parse the html and replace all possible revenue bearing links with our own crap - loose translations will do because if we substitute a crap link, the AFFILIATE SITE will get the blame!"

Second MicroSerf "Like yeah dude, cool idea. Bill will love it! Maybe we could just buy Google instead of building our own database?"

Third MicroSerf "No way dude - Google is like, SO yesterday. We need to buy Arse Jeeves"

All Microserfs "Yeah, good call dude"


oh - I forgot, Microsod couldn't write a decent bit of code to save their lives...

[Dynamoo]

Microsoft have been there and done that.. in the preview version of IE6 they had a technology called "Smart Tags" switched on by default.

In the preview versions, IE6 would underline key words in a visited web page with a link of Microsoft's choosing (Gator used to work like this too). So for example, under the word "Linux", Microsoft could have a link to a web page about "Why Linux is Evil".

Funnily enough, there was a bit of an outcry and Microsoft dropped the idea. I guess that maybe they just didn't need another lawsuit and government investigation that day.