Providing better tracking to Affiliates vs Privacy of customers

[sdani]

I am starting a new site, where I would like to add my own affiliate program. Being an affiliate for years myself, I would like to provide some additional tracking to the affiliates, so that they feel more comfortable. This is what I plan to provide them:

For clicks:
1. IP address
2. Time
3. URL / Tracking ID that was clicked. (they can add their own tracking ID).

For sales:
1. Date time of original click. (i.e. everything listed above) plus
2. Date time of sale.
3. IP Address of the buyer.
4. email address of the buyer.

If I provide the above information there is a huge privacy concern on part of the buyer. So, to avoid that, I plan to provide them MD5 hash of the IP address and MD5 hash of the email address, instead of the real values. Now, if the affiliate wants to track my system (i.e. test sales or own purchases) they would probably know the IP and email address and they can generate the hash and track it, but they cannot do the reverse, i.e. if they know the hash, they cannot generate the IP & the email address. This should protect the privacy of my buyers.

1. Would that fly with the privacy advocates?
2. Would that be enough tracking information for the affiliates to build their trust in a new affiliate program which is not run by major networks?

Thanks
sdani

[SeanW]

What about the CJ sid method? The affiliate passes a number to the merchant via the user's request, this number is kept throughout the transaction for later identification. This way it's beneficial for more than just spot checks, it can also be used for the affiliate's analysis.

Sean

[sdani]

Yes, I have that tracking ID. See # 3 above -

"3. URL / Tracking ID that was clicked. (they can add their own tracking ID)."

but tracking id can only be used by those affiliates who have some sophisticated way to add it to each click. If I want someone to write an article and post a link, they may not be able to do that if they don't have a sophisticated system.

I would like to target content writers as affiliates, not just the programmers.

sdani

[eljefe3]

I'd be careful with the email address of the customer. Could open a big can of worms if you have an unehtical affiliate who makes some sales for you then spams your customers.

[sdani]

eljefe3, since I plan to show the MD5 hash of the email, the affiliate will not be able to see the email address. They can verify a sale, IF they know the email address by generating the hash, but they should not be able to reverse engineer it, i.e. should not be able to generate the email address using the hash.

Does that makes sense?

sdani

[neesheeth]

IP address and email is a complete no IMHO. If the affiliate does a test purchase, the date and time of the order should be good enough. So no need of email in MD5.

cheers!
-nish