95 New Posts Today

[openrsm]

Here you go Ed...

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=1735771#

[Boom or Bust]

Here's my example. Our primary merchant for affiliate links is eBay. With their millions of choices of products to promote, the chances of being ripped off by One Cause increases dramatically as we add more products. And, as far as I'm concerned, even one stolen commission is wrong.

Now, consider that One Cause claims to have given $211,000,000 to "good causes". I wonder how much of that was stolen from affiliates?

But get this, $211,000,000 WAS stolen from merchants because One Cause drove NO sales.

[Mr. Sal]

Originally Posted by Ed Byerly

Here's my example. Now, consider that One Cause claims to have given $211,000,000 to "good causes". I wonder how much of that was stolen from affiliates?

But get this, $211,000,000 WAS stolen from merchants because One Cause drove NO sales.

$211,000,000 WAS stolen from merchants?

I rest my case, because no one would be able to steal more than $100.00 from me, and get away with it!

[CathyM]

Ed,
You are missing some zeroes. The number is $211,544,991.

From the examples that Haiko showed, they are giving 50% of commissions to charity. That makes it $422 million that they have made (if they are truthful about their numbers). Half goes to charity, half they keep.

[Boom or Bust]

Yep. Fixed the figures...

[Boom or Bust]

I just commented on the /. article. I would like to see others add their comments too...

[Bob Lawrence]

I just sent links to these post to 6 of link merchants I belong to.

[msladybug]

I'll be sending to my merchants first thing Monday, as well. I'm normally rather silent in the forum but enough is enough!

Haiko - Thank you for all your work on this issue. Know that even those of us that aren't as vocal as others in the forum are watching this thread and many of us WILL act to let merchants we are involved with know about this issue. Is there anything else as affiliates we should be doing?

[Snowman]

There is absolutely no reason to remove any merchants for this reason at this time. This is a Linkshare issue, not a merchant issue. And this impacts ALL merchants that OneCause is affiliated with, not just Linkshare merchants.

As to the figure listed on OneCause's site, frankly I don't believe it. What proof do you have?

[jodyq]

Should I also twitter this, I Started being a twit yesterday and have like 500 followers many who are affiliates. What do I give them the url post above on my search bar???
Spreading the word quickly i hope. Will try hard to get the word out, so many people will complain or do what ever it is they have to do to not get robbed.
This kinda sucks, if you think about it, if some one comes into your house and steals money and things it is a felony, these people get away with stealing but it is not a crime.

[simcat]

Does anyone believe the 211 million # ?

Assuming a generous 10% commish, that means 4.2 Billion in sales on 422 million. That may be over several years, but still...

Entire industries in the US aren't that big. All the video game consoles sold in the US in 2007 amounted to 6 billion.

Their 2006 about us page speaks about giving 'hundreds of thousands' to charity.

http://web.archive.org/web/200602112...t/about_us.asp

[Bob Lawrence]

I didn't mean to imply that I removed them.
I haven't, I just contacted the affiliate mangers that I have access to.

[Zeus]

SchoolPop and One Cause have merged, now.
SchooPop grew from $25 million to $100 million in revenue the last 3 years before their bankrupcy in 2005.
What's important for these thieves is the number of PC infested by their malware. Each of these parasites can reach easily 7 million installs.

[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

Please do not drop the merchant, I am not asking anyone to do that! I am asking that you contact the merchant and make them aware that OneCause a division of Rakuten (who owns Linkshare) is actively redirecting traffic and being unjustly enriched by such action and they should act accordingly.

This is wake up call for ALL compliance and "network quality" people.

-------
Movie time, got a few today, even though i took most of the day off ... sad, sad sad!

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[MichaelColey]

Originally Posted by simcat

Does anyone believe the 211 million # ?

Absolutely. The big loyalty sites have a very large reach, and they're one of the biggest and oldest. And as has already been pointed out, the commissions they've earned is probably double that. Most loyalty sites rebate or donate about half of their commissions.

[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

msladybug,

Thank you, please do urge all the merchants on the list to investigate and do the right thing.

------------

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I want to remind everyone that if there was a pre-exisiting affiliate cookie it would be overwritten by onecause with direct type ins to the merchant (like in this example).

[simcat]

"onecause toolbar" has 5 mentions in google. Compare to 12.5 million results for "alexa toolbar"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...22&btnG=Search

If millions of people are going to the onecause site to sign up, it doesn't show
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=...ate=all&sort=0
300k alexa, I have a few sites that good..

Of course, we all know that there are other ways to get a toolbar put on your computer besides visiting the home site....

[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

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