[Kellie aka Ms. B]

You can actually detect that Zango is installed on the end user's computer or maybe was installed at one time (if a complete uninstall did not occur), but that isn't the same as detecting that an actual pop-up just happened. There are some other adware that can be detected using js and that used to float around in use. But it's to the point now that there are so many adware and variants that it is a task to keep the detection list up-to-date. And the ability to detect is dependent on how the adware is programmed, so not all can be detected.

This is a recent true story with detecting Zango. A group of adult webmasters heard of Zango and what it was doing for the first time towards the end of last year. They were outraged and were going to fix the problem. So they got together, made a script to detect Zango on end users computers and circulated it around the adult industry. When it detected Zango installed, it would redirect the end user to a splash page instead of their affiliate site telling them to pretty much to uninstall Zango if they wanted to access the adult content. Zango promptly programmed in keyword triggers for the content of those pages and delivered a pop-up exulting the benefits of Zango. The end result of all that was that the end user got caught in the middle of a browser redirect/pop-up control of browser content war. Not such a good thing from the consumer prospective.

Consumers are the other party in all of this that have suffered greatly with all of this nonsense. And at the end of the day, consumers are who make us all our money. Yet they continue to be used, abused and placed as shields for certain business models (i.e. the consumer really wants it and we keep the internet free for consumers), when in reality the only concern by some for the consumer is that they have a piece of equipement (their computer) to install some piece of revenue generating software. T

[KariBon]

Donuts .. re you post saying >The ugly part is, since Zango is installed on the shopper's computer, it does not have the same limitations - it can listen to and watch everything the user does and make many changes to your computer including writing and deleting certain files.<

I've been finding changes on some of my loaded pages and when I go back into my HTML editor, find that the change is There Too, on my hard drive, even tho the link is to some place I've never heard of or knew existed, so I couldn't have possibly done it myself. The changes are subtle things I'd never check once I'd check them the first time.

So does this mean something like Zango has access to my PC, makes the change there, and when I re-load the page is when the change takes place on the Web? Or would it have to be that I downloaded the page from my server to my hard drive and it got on my hard drive that way. Which would mean they have access to my server? (I do that sometimes when I'm not sure which was the latest page I loaded.)

Boy, am I confused!

Karin

[2busy]

Thank you, Donuts, this is a very valuable article. If merchants understood the way these thieves affect them they might start looking for a way to do something about it.

For KariBon: just go to PC Tools site and you can find out for sure-for free. The freebie version won't remove spyware but it lets you know what's there, and even the freebie version monitors to prevent more of the same.

[Donuts]

KariBon, I doubt any adware / malware is messing with your web page editing. It's possible, but they have so many others ways of stealing commissions that there's no need to go to the depths of messing with your pages. It's more likely that your html editor runs auto-correction on things or autoformats something in the pages after you edit them. Some html editors, especially FrontPage, use extensions located on your hosting company's servers that can auto-edit your code as well. Then there are hosting companies that will edit parts of your page with security software they run, but this is infrequent and usually not problematic at all. Describe the changes you're talking about and we can help you pinpoint it further, but from what you've said so far, I'd say it's likely your html editor and some feature it has to try to automatically make your code "better".

This isn't a specific answer to your problem, just an example of an html editor doing things the author didn't intend for it to do:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/82179

If you want to chat further about this, as an html editing problem, please open a new thread here:
http://forum.abestweb.com/forumdisplay.php?f=191

[KariBon]

Thanks, DoNuts and 2Busy .. ok, I'll stop worrying about it! I've got full Norton IS and Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. It probly Is my host trying to be helpful .. they did that before with System Attributes and screwed up some pages.

Thanks Again!

[awte]

man I feel like Johnny Numonic when he got overloaded with info you guys are the people to kick it with man that was sweet

[nicayla]

and thank you for starting the education.

I looked at the charts at AffiliateFairPlay.com and it is amazing as to which networks have the most problems.

It seems simple enough for the "top 2 networks" to implement fixes to this issues (at least with the known adware like Zango).

Why aren't they changing their technology?

[options]

Any idea about how much would be worth a peace of software which eliminates the possibility of rewriting cookies and other publisher's data?

[Donuts]

All software approaches have potential flaws - and software just automates decisions - the decisions themselves are what's critical. The secret is to analyze the real value of your affiliates (and other channels), to see if they bring in incremental sales, then remove those that don't.

There are things you can do to tilt all the factors in your favor, as a merchant - choose an ethical network, know your producing affiliates and their tactics, have a knowledgable affiliate manager, have sound policies that are policed, network with your peers to learn faster, track touches, put nobody above being tracked / analyzed...

Properly configured tracking and analytics software can lead you to make sound conclusions about the value of your different channels, but there's no bunker busting "magic bullet" off-the-shelf software available to solve this problem for you. But it's not hopeless either, simply track what your customers are doing and get intimate with the data surrounding the decisions you're currently making about who gets the credit for the sale.

If you take the simple approach, just reading a cookie at the end once the sale has been completed, you miss the opportunity to "see" when and how "referrals" are happening.

Analogy... shiny new Mercedes in a driveway... could be a doctor or a drug dealer... you can't tell from looking at the car - to know, you gotta take a peak at what they do during the day to make money. If the person is your business partner and you're the one that's paying them tons of money, perhaps it's worth looking for the difference.

Volume isn't the best sign of value, you have to look closer to recognize value.

And reported sales should be viewed skeptically, the reports are blind to value, they only report volume.

[tokusoudeka]

Great posts, Donuts, Kellie and BE!

If anyone is interested in learning about basic traffic flow, I would highly recommend observing referrer headers and server requests using the Live HTTP Headers ad-on for FireFox.

...I have never met Ben but I have communicated my appreciation to him for what he does for us. So if you can help him out, please do.

I met Ben a couple of times and I have to say that my respect for him and his work has only increased. Ben is a truly sincere and dedicated individual who strives for clarity and consistency in all of his projects.

It really is an arms race here. As the "bad guys" become more sophisticated in defrauding Advertisers, this industry's tiny Compliance community must evolve as well. Posts like these and the SCI work done by BE and AFP are invaluable resources for guys like me.

Cheers!

[Donuts]

Little update...

Two of the biggest adware outfits behind all of this "cookie planting at the last second to take credit for the sale that was about to happen anyway", are Zango and Vomba.

Zango's in California and has been in trouble with the FTC for their practices, well documented on the Internet, but are still operating in a large way.

Vomba's in Canada and growing rapidly, bad news for all of us real marketers who actually refer customers to our partners website's. And Vomba just recently purchased WhenU:
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419...s-rival-whenu/

So Vomba's distribution network is now much larger and the shitake spread of it continues. It remains to be seen if this near-clone of Zango, but located in Canada, can escape the reaches of the FTC as they clog up PC's around the globe.

It's important to realize that these outfits have many names - they peddle games and screensavers and all kinds of kid-targetted junk through many different sites and brands, plus they both have unique names for the sites where cookie cheaters go to buy "ads" from them.

Zango is the adware company itself, and they operate Metrics Direct as the place where people go to sign up, to pay to run Zango pop-up ads - many of which are just cover for planting a cookie to steal credit for sales that are in the midst of happening. People who do "media buys" visit Metrics Direct and get the slick distribution story and professional looking interface where they are able to pay to pop Zango crapola on people everywhere. These folks paying for these ads are the reason Zango is in business and is also the reason these adware company's try so hard to get this clogging crapware loaded onto people's computers everywhere.

For the growing Vomba, they operate Media Traffic, which is their slick interface where "media buys" can be made enabling "advertisers" to pop ads through their extensive Vomba adware network.

So don't just look for the names "Zango" and "Vomba", but be aware of their divisions called "Metrics Direct" and "Media Traffic" where the money flows in the front door of adware.

Keep in mind the intentional strategy... catchy names like Zango and Vomba are used on their downloads, to be cool and hip sounding... but when they go seeking people to pay them to allow popup and cookie dropping, they use their dressed up business fronts called Metrics Direct and Media Traffic.

I saw that Media Traffic has a booth registered for Affiliate Summit in Boston. You'll find them (and others like them) at conferences besides Summit too. They're also in our industry's magazines, blogs, forums, etc. I'm not dogging Summit here, I love attending and it's a fabulous, valuable conference, the best one available in my view - but I do keep in mind that not everyone there thinks and acts like me, some despicably so. So I'm just sharing today, so that our members here at ABW, will be better informed when they walk by the Media Traffic booth at Affiliate Summit.

[helpingmoms]

Thanks, Donuts, for the update. I for one absolutely appreciate this kind of information sharing because there are so many different facets to affiliate marketing that it is hard to keep up with all of it.

[Zeus]

Donuts- I saw that Media Traffic has a booth registered for Affiliate Summit in Boston. You'll find them (and others like them) at conferences besides Summit too.

Thanks for sharing, Donuts. If these thieves attend these affiliates conferences it's for a good reason, to recruit merchants and affiliates.

[mr_jones]

Had no idea, thanks Donuts!

This is very educational and important to affiliates and merchants.

More bad apples is all we need.

[ColleenD]

Thanks Donunts! That's good to know.

Colleen Darwent
Affiliate Manager
WorldwideBrands.com

[tokusoudeka]

The move by Vomba to acquire WhenU is disturbing on a number of levels. As Donuts pointed out, by acquiring the now-named-MeMedia, they've successfully expanded the reach of the MT network and their publisher/marketer base.

It would be interesting to see if Zango goes beyond the expansion of its services (now offering avatars for Hotbar BHO ) and spends its earnings on a WhenU-like acquisition.

It's nice to see that security groups can also form coalitions. A number of companies teamed up to fight off the ridiculous Zango lawsuit against Kaspersky: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/secur...l?nav=rss_blog

Boggles my mind as to why the National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy would support Zango's appeal. Equating illicit installation behavior, forced-clicks, domain targeting and obfuscation with cookies?

While Thomas Boyd makes a good point about need for checks n' balances (meaning accountability) on the security vendor side, he neglects to mention that the company he endorses is technically still in violation of its settlement with the FTC.

Seems to me that those vendors incentivized (financially and ethically) to protect consumer interests would tend to be more open and honest about their practices than say... those incentivized to exploit consumers.

[HazelB]

For the growing Vomba, they operate Media Traffic, which is their slick interface where "media buys" can be made enabling "advertisers" to pop ads through their extensive Vomba adware network.

Thanks Doh, I didn't know about Media Traffic. Good tip.

[John Powell]

Had coffee this morning with a friend who I helped to set up his new Dell about 2 weeks ago. He already has Zango plastered all over the thing. I could have been much nicer. He blames his grandkids and he hadn't even noticed that the toolbar hadn't come with the machine. He had noticed all the pop-ups though. We used Add/Remove Programs but probably didn't get it all.

[GardenDiva]

Newbie that I am, I am overwhelmed by the fantastic information presented in this thread. Donuts, I first saw your post thru NetShops, which led me here. Thanks much for the enlightenment. WOW! Who would have known?

My question refers to the toolbar you mentioned. I just recently purchased 30 minute backlinks thru Clickbank which suggests (among other things) creating your own toolbar for web visitors to download. Is this the same type of toolbar problem you are referring to?

I need direction and want to make sure this is white hat all the way! I sure don't want to contribute to any problems.

Thanks!

[Donuts]

Toolbars are very often problematic - not always, but often enough to stain them badly in the affiliate marketing sector. Often they automatically invoke a click or otherwise set a cookie (or other tracking mechanism) to take credit for a sale that was going to happen anyway -- which isn't marketing, it is figuring out ways to anticipate sales and plopping a cookie to take credit for it.

There are numerous other pitfalls in the toolbar pathway, it's a bad road to go down.

So is ClickBank, they are rife with fraud and their policing efforts (compared to other networks), rank among the very worst. Their merchants are uninformed about the cheating tactics, so they think that sales being reported from these poaching techniques, like toolbars, are "good" things. You'd be well served to work with merchants that have learned to recognize and reward value - they aren't at ClickBank.

[GardenDiva]

Thanks for your feedback.

Based on what I've read on this forum, think I'll concentrate on working with NetShops and ShareaSale network.

[2busy]

AvantLink is another Clean Network.

[billkp2]

I had heard of the issues with others being able to take an affiliate's "sale" but I wasn't sure how it took place. The toolbar issue was a new one for me, too.

I appreciate the knowledge given by all of you.

[HydroponicsUsa]

Excellent Reading Thanks....

Yes, I am a Newbie and this was my 1st reply...John

[AB83]

Donuts - thanks for taking the time to post things like this. It comes as an invaluable service to myself and many others.

I have used SAS for the most part to manage my merchant's accounts, and after going through this I may begin taking a closer look at Avantlink as well.

Avi