Sophisticated URL hijackers seem to have settled on a set of tactics designed to minimize the discoverability of their affiliate ID. They’ve learned that their ads are discoverable and have been investing in steps to prevent detection of their affiliate ID. While we have seen a wide range of skills, the use of [...]

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I had a fun video chat with Jamie Birch of JEB Commerce a few weeks back. We touch on a number of the challenges facing affiliate managers and discuss the details associated with the CSS History Hack and referrer laundering.
You can see the full video on the JEB Commerce blog.

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Recently we’ve seen affiliates exploit a hole common to web browsers to evade detection from affiliate managers. The hack is known as the CSS History Hack and it exposes information about what sites you visited before. Affiliates use this technique to determine if a web visitor is an affiliate manager (or network representative), and [...]

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I’ll be speaking at Affiliate Summit West on the Monday 2 PM Panel: Affiliate Program Compliance: Working with the Networks. My co-panelists include Rachel Corcoran, Director of Compliance at Hydra, Graham MacRobie, CEO of Alias Encore and Jamie Birch, CEO of JEBCommerce.
Stop by and say hi!

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We recently discovered a Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Bit.ly that is being used by affiliates to insert affiliate links into bit.ly accounts.
A quick primer on CSRF attacks (from wikipedia):

The attack works by including a link or script in a page that accesses a site to which the user is known (or is [...]

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As PoachMark has grown, we’ve added detection for the affiliate networks our customers were utilizing. We’ve just recently added our fiftieth affiliate network. A few of the recently added networks include: ClickBooth, FlexOffers, CommissionSoup and CX Digital.
If you see a network that we currently don’t monitor that would be helpful to you or [...]

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Commission Junction provides merchants the ability to offer encrypted affiliate links. These encrypted links usually look something like this:

http://www.tkqlhce.com/b274nmvsmu9CBGFJEC9BADHIEHC

PoachMark frequently finds affiliates utilizing encrypted links in their search redirects. PoachMark is now able to decrypt the encrypted affiliate link to show its original form:

http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-2165942-10572459

This saves merchants substantial time and improves PoachMark customers’ visibility [...]

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Techcrunch has a series of scathing articles about the CPA offer spam found in Facebook games. I don’t expect that this is a surprise for many in the CPA world, but they are a must read for any program offering CPA offers and wondering about the quality of their CPA payouts:
How to spam Facebook [...]

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Geno Prussakov has a great post on the AM Navigator blog about how recent changes to Google Suggest can help prevent trademark poaching.
The screenshot below demonstrates a new way to bring up advertisements using Google Suggest:

While Geno’s point is that:
From the above image, it is obvious that Google Suggest puts the original website on the [...]

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Techcrunch has a good article on the latest conundrum facing affiliate managers: Izea (formerly PayPerPost) has begun introducing affiliate links to its network of sponsored bloggers.
While bloggers inserting affiliate links into their posts is nothing new (and not even necessarily bad), this particular incident is troubling for brand owners. The FTC has become increasingly [...]

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