[UncleScooter]

Originally Posted by ToddCrawford

If this functionality is part of the Upromise EULA, then it would be in compliance. In other words, this is part of the service the end user is opting in to.

What a crock of shit! That is a good one Todd.

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

Sooooo much to say in response to posts in this thread. But today is Thanksgiving, so it will wait until tomorrow.

For now all I will only say 2 things to Todd's post:

1. This goes back to my original point with this thread. What the mentality of many decision makers in this Industry is. And to which I disagree strongly. User "consent" shouldn't supercede the actual behavior of the affiliate. That can be a dangerous slippery slope and one that this Industry has already paid for. How much more are we possibly going to pay because of these types of decisions?
2. To Joe Blow affiliate......reality bites no? But know and understand what is going on out there and then plan accordingly. Again knowledge is power. If affiliates really understand and get what Todd just posted, then my posting was worth the time.

[bedelman]

As to automatic invocation of affiliate links, without a user actually clicking on any link, Todd wrote:

Originally Posted by ToddCrawford

If this functionality is part of the Upromise EULA, then it would be in compliance. In other words, this is part of the service the end user is opting in to.

The Code of Conduct says:

Non End-User Initiated Events. Publishers may not use invisible methods to generate non End-User initiated impressions, clicks, or transactions. All click ("Click") events must be initiated by an affirmative End-User action.

Seems like an automatic invocation of an affiliate link is "invisible"; there's no clear on-screen indication of what's happening.

Nor is there an "affirmative end user action" that causes such invocations of affiliate links. All a user has done is visit a given merchant's web site. That's not "affirmative." It's "non end-user initiated" -- precisely what the above provisions seek to prohibit.

The CJ Code of Conduct does not say that these practices are permissible if disclosed in a EULA. Quite the contrary! The CJ CoC bans these practices, no matter how they're disclosed. Indeed, the CJ CoC bans these practices even if users specifically want them and specifically request them!

I addressed these same issues in my August write-up on SAHS:

There are good reasons for these rules: Affiliate merchants often make substantial payments if an affiliate link is activated and a user makes a purchase. (For example, Dell could easily pay $10+ for a single purchase through a single link.) So software programs aren't allowed to "click" on affiliate links automatically. Instead, users must actually show some interest in the links -- protecting merchants from being asked to pay commissions when an affiliate did nothing to earn a fee.

On some level CJ's rules are for CJ to interpret as it sees fit. But where (as here) CJ's rules exist to protect merchants, at CJ's short-run expense (by reducing the scope of permissible commissionable transactions), merchants would rightly be concerned by a subsequent rule (re-)interpretation that advances CJ's interest at merchants' expense. Furthermore, where rules have only one clear interpretation directly rooted in the specific language of the rules (recall "invisible", "affirmative", etc.), it's a stretch to try to say that the rules mean something other than what their plain language specifies.

So, in my view, each software program that automatically invokes affiliate links is in breach of the above-quoted sections of the CJ CoC. That includes Ebates, Upromise, all the other TopMoxies, and more.

[Gordon]

You took the words right out of my mouth UncleScooter.

Todd in view of what Ben posted above could you please explain how CJ manages to finds them in compliance when every other person I have spoke to and everybody else (apart from David Coppins the VP of online shopping at Upromise) who have posted here find them to be NOT in compliance?

I look forward to your reply and explanation.

[ecomcity]

Originally Posted by David Coppins

To Uncle Scooter,

CJ has certified that our RemindU application is not in violation of their publisher agreement. If my description of what happens leads you to believe that, then my description is inadequate. If you believe it is still in violation, please bring it up with CJ.

To Andy:

you said the following:
"An end user on my site reads about this wonderful product Acme Merchant offers for sale on their site, and clicks a link "Click here to buy this item". Upon arriving at the merchant site, UPromise pops up to "remind them" about the savings. It also effectively cuts me out of the deal." (sorry, i don't know how to use the nifty quote function).

As long as you are using "afsrc=" on your site for that link, then RemindU does nothing. It is inactive. Our RemindU functionality is not designed to steal traffic from any affiliate using appropriate affiliate links whether that is from your site, an email, paid search, etc. Some applications are better at keeping up with changes than others. I think Top Moxie generally does a good job of keeping up on that.

Overall, if any of you truly believe our RemindU application is in violation of accepted code of conduct, then I suggest you contact Linkshare, CJ, and Performics and launch formal complaints. They have all reviewed the software and how it functions in much greater detail than those conjecturing on this bulletin board. They are the entities that have taken a legitimate approach to testing the software and may do so again if your concerns are voiced.

That is all I will say about this subject.

I'd rather report Upromise to the FTC, then the Adwhores operating CJ, and suggest they feature you and this thread on www.stopbadware.com when the public OUTINGS begin.

My site since 1998 has never used any merchant affiliate coded links not generated and approved by the major networks. Therefore your commission stealing program feasts like a parasite off my traffic since no network provides me any link with "afsrc=" attacjed to it. You said: [b]As long as you are using "afsrc=" on your site for that link, then RemindU does nothing.[/u]

Your BHO and your members hijack every single link from EcomCity.com to any merchant. If the destination merchant isn't a Upromise merchant you popup an alert to a competitor with incentive enticements like some pedophile offering candy to some child. You 100% monitize every route to your merchant sites using some hired gun Adwhore pimp operations called affiliate program management firms. If the real merchants behind those AM firms condoning cookie stuffing and forced clicks fired them and banned Upromise from their programs they'd not see any drop in gross sales. In fact they'd make more money even in the affiliate channel sales at lower commisison payouts -fewer rebates/coupon incentives, and vener would incur the bad rap for their brand by siding with the browser hijackers/Adware/Spyware.

Not one Upromise member can afford to pay your unethical management fee of 80% on their kids college savings account. Thank God your firm isn't involved in funnelling 10 cents on a dollar to the various "Feed & House the Poor" charities as your operation would make the UN's Oil for Food program grifters look like pikers. They use the Feelgood approach too to cover their greedy butts real adjenda. It's about time some AG's or Congress investigate the TopMoxie run parasites for accounting practices.

[Donuts]

Originally Posted by ecomcity

It's about time some AG's or Congress investigate the TopMoxie run parasites for accounting practices.

Second that motion.

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

Well it's been just over 5 months since I started this thread. The main issues being was UPromise engaging in parasitic behaviors and were they eliciting the tracking of their affiliate links via deceptive behaviors when the end user was automatically redirected to the UPromise web site and elected to click the link provided stating they did not want to earn any college savings and that link was UPromise's affiliate link.

David Coppins from UPromise responded in this thread. He stated this was a glitch in their software which engineering didn't think through years ago when they were setting up the UPromise software. It is a result of an end user who does not have the UPromise login cookie on their computer when their software redirects the user away from the merchant's site to remind the end user they can earn some money for their college savings plan.

He went on to say (bolding and coloring by me):

What are we doing about it?
It is important to us that we maintain a strong positive reputation in the industry. While I don’t think Scenario 3 is against any official code of conduct, we agree with many that have posted here that it is not a positive business practice. We are working right now to figure out how to conditionally change the “continue without receiving college savings” link when someone is referred to that page from RemindU vs. referred to that page when on our website. I can assure you we will fix the offending scenario even if it means we will give up the revenue as described in Scenario 1.

He further states:

Unfortunately, I don’t have an estimated time for the fix yet. I don’t think I am alone when I say it is a frustrating experience trying to get anything changed in engineering in a company that is large enough to have slot plans, prioritization task forces, etc. etc. As soon as I have an expected date for the fix, I will re-post.

David never did post an estimated time for the fix which he publicly admits is not a positive business practice. And I bet you can guess where all this is leading........

The publicly admitted not so positive business practice in the form of a 'glitch' continues just in in my original vidoes
5 months later.

We are not talking a major redo of the entire programming of their software to fix the problem as they publicly promised. One solution would be to just remove the affiliate link from the opt out link on their page and change it to a direct link to the merchant as David stated they would do if necessary. He stated in order to engage in positive business practices they would do that and lose that revenue. The other option is to just put up a separate landing page for the situation where the end user doesn't have a login cookie on their computer which does not contain that link. Of course there is ALWAYS the option of not automatically redirecting the end users browsing.

Regardles, UPromise (a rather ironic name in this particular situation) has not lived up to their public Promise. I think 5 months is more than reasonable for their engineering department (or TopMoxie's programmers) to get the issue on their priority list if there was any intention of doing so.

Afterall, the software calls out to the upromise and top moxie servers looking to update itself everytime the end user reboots their computer. And I've had other updates come through for the software. Just no change in the behavior promised to be fixed.

And heck...UPromise works with FireFox and not just IE. That bit of programming managed to find it's way on the engineers priority list. Now even those FireFox users can be captured on the UPromise splash page where every options (aside from closing the browser or inputing another URL in the browser) lead to UPromise setting their affiliate tracking.

If anyone wants to particularly see the videos I made last week of UPromise continuing this practice, I will upload them. But they look just the same as my first videos except I'm surfing with FireFox instead of IE.

I know I shouldn't take such a 'simplistic' view when looking at parasitic behavior, but sometimes I just can't help the simpleton that I am.............

Or maybe it's just that when you get enough momentum behind your business, you don't really have to engage in positive business behaviors or keep public promises.

[Donuts]

Simply put, they are liars and thieves. Nothing but legal force / threat of shutdown will change their behavior. I hope the FTC burns them badly.

DR got theirs. UPromise will too.

And I hope the networks pushing them into programs everywhere pay for their complicity as well.

Kellie, you're an angel for constantly watching and reporting on these guys for us all.

[Kevin]

I'm consistently amazed by the fact that we even have to debate this.

As an affiliate manager, whenever Upromise takes a commission from your merchant even after doing a direct type in of the website, it's theft.
Pure and simple.

I sincerely hope that as this industry matures (even more than it already has), that serious steps will be taken to make affiliate marketers a true sales force. ALL affiliate marketers.

Any time freebie commissions are paid to unsavorys like UPromise (regardless of UPromises seemingly good intentions), it drives up the Cost of Acquisition for the AM channel for that merchant.

And the most attractive part of the affiliate marketing channel is it's comparitively low cost of acquisition. The merchants need to be educated on this. And it is DIRECTLY the responsibility of AM's (Collins included) to do this.

If they don't, they are short selling their own future as AM's. I hope they've made their money already, because they are deliberately and consistently damaging this business model.

[Zeus]

Thanks Kellie for the update.
Five months later, they had no time to modify their reminder but enough to prospect new merchants.
How much money was stolen from these merchants and their affiliates these last few years?
We'll know Eliot Spitzer is getting closer at the next wave of resignation of top executives at LS and CJ. It's going to happen, it's just a matter of time.
The networks and their "technology partners" are just a bunch of crooks and liars.

[UncleScooter]

Did anyone really think they would fix this? Does anyone really think UP has anything even close to business ethics or morals?

This is proof that UP cares not about sending anyone to college, that is only a cover to allow them to steal from merchants.

I will send a link to this thread to every UP merchant I can contact.

[Kevin]

We'll know Eliot Spitzer is getting closer at the next wave of resignation of top executives at LS and CJ. It's going to happen, it's just a matter of time.

Don't absolve the AM's either. The ones that justify the existance of BHO's and other pick pocketing tools are just as guilty...

[Zeus]

True, the AMs earnings are linked to the level of fraud.

[ecomcity]

Everyone of those 1200 AM's are fully aware Upromise is a theftware application. Shame on Overstock for years allowing Upromise to overwrite every shopper I send them who have Upyours installed on their system. When the Upromise folks decide the Feds, Local AGs, and the real merchant management are fed up with their spyware/adware/theftware app they bankrupt the company. The whole idea for Upromise was to allow their investors and management a 10-15 year escape plan before pulling the rug on little Johnies college fund. A fund they scrape 80% off the top as management fees. The first time I saw the big politicians jumping on the board of directors I knew this one stunk to high heaven.

This one is so huge Eliot Spitzer or their home base AG should pull off the covers on this den of thieves. Anyone have a guess what LS skims off the double dipping stuffed cookie exploits of Upromise and eBates.