What is parastite and cookie stuffing?

[signup1]

I understand some, but not all. I know some spyware changed the IE on the PC, so every time if your visitor go to somesite, it will install its own cookie first.

For cookie stuffing, most use iframes, but how could somebody install 100s of cookies at one time? That means it will open 100s of hidden iframes. That is a lot of download time. Is it? I could not think another way to do cookie stuffing from web server.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 7:05 pm (utc) on Oct. 25, 2004]

[jasonlambert]

I would guess you can set multiple cookies using the Set-Cookie HTTP response header multiple times?

You would need to check the HTTP RFC to confirm if that is possible however, but I think it is.

[signup1]

Not true. Affliate Cookies needs to be placed from certain domain. You can not place Google Cookie from YourDomain.com. There are other ways to do that.

[iblaine]

Cookie stuffing refers to forcing cookies. For a typical cookie tracking situation you have your image and a link. Someone clicks a link, they go to a tracking server, a cookie is created then the user is redirected to a merchant. That's normal. Cookie stuffing could be doing something like creating a popup automatically, in which case the user clicks a link and automatically generates a cookie. Usually someone that's cookie stuffing is abusing popups and forcing cookies - coupon sites commonly do this.

Parasite ware is an extension of cookie stuffing. The idea being a parasite ware company will load software onto a consumers computer. This could be something like a calendar in your taskbar. When the consumer shops online, the parasite ware software will intercept clicks to an affiliate networks tracking servers and overwrite affiliate IDs. For example, I have an affiliate website selling widgets and you have an affiliates parasite ware installed. If you shop on my site then the parasite ware affiliate will take the commission. Good parasite ware affiliates (i know it's an oxymoron) are reward shopping sites. Bad parasite ware affiliates are the ones that install hidden applications on your computer.

[EasyClickTravel]

Personally, I think parasites and such are only a problem for right now. Affiliate Networks and Affiliate managers who are either naive to the problem or shady enough to look the other way will continue to do so until the Merchants start to realize that they are paying unwarranted commissions. Most companies run their own CPC and SEO programs, do you think the "Director of Marketing" or whoever oversees both the affiliate side and the SEO & CPC would allow such a practice that would force them to pay twice for the same sale? NO. If they knew they would stop it immediately. This will eventually happen, it is just a matter of experience for everyone involved. COC and TOS do nothing. If any network wanted to really clean up its act, it would educate the merchants. I hope Linkshare chooses this route.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 7:08 pm (utc) on Oct. 25, 2004]

[signup1]

Personally, I think parasites and such are only a problem for right now. Affiliate Networks and Affiliate managers who are either naive to the problem or shady enough to look the other way will continue to do so until the Merchants start to realize that they are paying unwarranted commissions. Most companies run their own CPC and SEO programs, do you think the "Director of Marketing" or whoever oversees both the affiliate side and the SEO & CPC would allow such a practice that would force them to pay twice for the same sale? NO. If they knew they would stop it immediately. This will eventually happen, it is just a matter of experience for everyone involved. COC and TOS do nothing. If any network wanted to really clean up its act, it would educate the merchants. I hope Linkshare chooses this route.

i see spyware as a problem, but force cookies do not hurt Merchants as much. think about this: does TV ad generate PPC for Merchants? NO, but why they want to pay for TV ads? If a site forces cookies, most likely they also promote that Merchant using their web server. The more people see Coco Cola every where, the more likely they will buy it. If somebody see the same deal of amazon on 10 different sites, they will trust amazon. Look at ipowerweb, a bad web hosting company, ranked #1 by many sites. If you don't know hosting, you will think they are really the best. PPC means Pay-Per-Click, but also Profit-after-Paying-Commission. Merchants stll make good money after PPC, so they should not worry much. It is just their profit margin got hurts, but they may be better off, as they may have better sales and branding. I see forced cookies as a payment for free banner impressions.

Cheating on PPC, like Adsense is really really bad. Same as stealing I think.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 7:11 pm (utc) on Oct. 25, 2004]

[signup1]

I missed used PPC at the first place. It should be Pay Per Sale.

I also forgot one case. If affilates steals from other affilates, it is really really bad.

[EasyClickTravel]

As far as I know, the company was not using any sort of spyware. From what I understand, they were promoting "computer deals" and then stuffing Dell cookies when the user Clicked over to that page for more info. They never clicked on anything that said Dell. According to either the TOS or the COC, not sure which one, the only time a user should get a cookie set is if they click through directly to the merchant website. So basically, what they were doing was dropping or "stuffing" cookies hoping that the user would eventually buy from dell and they would get the commission. This doesn't really hurt other affiliates directly, except in this case there was a contest involved. It does, however, cheat the merchant out of the commission paid to the company undeservedly and the commission paid to the Network.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 7:12 pm (utc) on Oct. 25, 2004]

[juice]

do cookies get set by the actual affiliate links as well as the 1x1 pixel image? I thought the image was mainly for tracking impressions.. I know some people (including myself) remove the 1x1 image due to code restraints and layouts.. do you think this would affect cookies? I still assumed that when people clicked on the link to cj or linkshare or whatever, that the cookie would still be set and the sale would be counted.. I've seen a huge drop off in my conversions and i've been trying everything to find out what could be the problem.. any possibility this would have something to do with it?

also.. talking to one of the major affiliate managers on cj this week i was informed that next week they would be moving to 'batch processing' which i was unclear on.. what is this exactly and what is the benefit? she said that it would make it more difficult for spyware/parasites to hijack cookies and circumstances where clients block cookies.. do other programs use tracking other than cookies?