Yes Paul it does.

As Kellie from www.affiliatefairplay.com explained in one of her posts, the software itself does not change or alter the cookie. BUT... it facilitates or makes possible the forced click which means that just the ad popping up automatically replaces the original cookie with the spyware affiliate cookie.

I've seen videos of this from Ben Edelman (www.benedelman.org) and Kellie. If you want to know how it's really done, they would be able to answer those questions better than I ever could since they do testing on a daily basis and I don't.

If you even look further on Ben's site, somewhere it says (or it used to, no idea where it is on his site) that with 180Solutions (I'm pretty sure that's who it is) you don't even need to get a popup to replace a cookie. Not only is it silent, but it can also be invisible to the surfer.

Missie

I could not agree more and said it better myself.

The only thing I hate more then having money stolen from me is that some lazy piece of shit who did nothing is getting the money. If I am going to part with it I would rather lose it betting, or donating it, anything then to reward some piece of scaming shit.

is there any way to protect your links from this?

I, for one, appreciate this information as it brings to light a number of possible truths about the adult industry... One being that it will not go away because this industry is one of absolutely no organization.

The sponsors rely on the surfer for their income. The affiliates bring attention to the surfers about the sponsors.. The bullshitware makes it possible for the sponsors to profit 100% from the affiliates' work by having their own aff codes pop up for the surfers to click on.

It's theft.. it's fraud.. it's all things bad...

Just another example of adult webmasters ripping each other off instead of uniting for long term survival... It's all about greed..

and as with anything else in this dog eat dog industry... nothing noticable will be resolved until there are laws enacted to stop it..
It damned sure won't happen by trying to organize in this industry..

One sure fire way to put an end to it would be to have boycotts of sponsors that allow it to continue... Ya think that would ever happen? Nobody wants to sacrafice their $100 current income for a possible $500 future income..

Too many can't see past their hand in front of their face...

Well, I do drop them and fast. And I know of a few others who do too. But the truth is that you're right, most people don't and won't. This has been discussed a million times in mainstream over the years.

It's a lot easier to switch sponsors in porn than it is to find replacements in mainstream. Sponsors are a dime a dozen in porn, many, many in the same niches. Why would you keep promoting one or more that allows this garbage?

The fact is that if you know how to make money with one sponsor that allows spyware, you can make money with a clean sponsor too. How much more do you think you could really make with a sponsor that credits all YOUR sales to YOU?

How many here do ppc and complain they get ripped off? All click fraud? All bad luck? Hardly. You're losing a good part of that money to a bunch of scums.

Have your conversions decreased in programs? Can't convert a program? Look at their TOS, does it say anything about NOT allowing spyware/adware/parasiteware/scumware/malware advertising? If not, that may be a a good place to start to find where your sales have gone.

Some of you may even be calling these scums friends, buddies, pals. In the meantime, they're taking YOUR money and you don't even know it. Most of these scums don't and won't announce publicly that they use this means to advertise, because they KNOW it's wrong and they're stealing from others.

Without affiliates to steal from, the only one left is the sponsor. How much money do you think that sponsor would make? They'd be out of business faster than you dropped them.

Missie

it has already started happening... it is going to be slow at first but it is gainining momentum. Give it a little time, keep bumping and asking your sponsors to comment on this.

Bump... Everyone needs to see this thread!

still looking for answers from some sponsors out there

Okay, here goes... my first shot on this thread... some of the things I know are not going to make people happy.

Zango is mostly in the clear because they aren't making the change or substitution or popup, but because it is end user software installed on individual machines that is making the change. Because the software is installed on individual computers, those indivudals have the right to permit themselves to be redirected. They agreed when they agreed to install the software (read the very long and annoying terms). In a purely technical way, zangos popover cookie munching processing is pretty much in the clear.

That being said, the solution will never be found at this end of the game, Quite simply, you cannot undo millions of installs.

The real answer comes from the sponsors. They need to work to sort out and properly manage the tracking of clicks through their sites, and not permit a pop over 1 or 2 seconds later from changing an affiliate code. They need to track and assure that an affiliate code is not lost of changed "on the road" between index page and join page. They have to assure that the affiliate code isn't being changed in the course of the sale being made, etc.

They need to take a PC in their office, infect it with Zango, and surfer their own affiliate sites on a daily basis and directly terminate ANY account that popups up in a zango ad without delay and without exception.

They need to stop paying Zango for top listings and stealing from their affiliates.

I will be intentionally infecting an older PC of mine later today, and I will start to review sponsors. I will contact them first, but any sponsor that is being zangoed and doesn't take action to stop the process will be removed.

End of discussion.

Alex

Not to end the discussion here, just end of my take on it, M'kay? ;)

Alex

closing Zango's accounts and not paying them is the least the sponsors can do about it

Yep. There will always be people who have no compunction about screwing others if there is a quick buck in it and it is utterly pointless to sit around hoping otherwise.

It is pathetic how few sponsors have taken the trouble to post in any of these threads. How many promos have been added over the last few days while these threads have been running? What exactly is the value of promising something "extra" if you don't do anything to prevent what we already have from being stolen?

And that's being generous and assuming none of the "missing" sponsors are directly involved in such activities...

I think the idea is three fold: Present the sponsors with the information about affiliates that are "hijacking" visitors through systems like zango, giving them a chance to terrminate those affiliates and more importantly to STOP THE TRAFFIC FROM REACHING THEIR SITES AND CORRUPTING THE TRACKING PROCESS.

Second step is work to remove unresponsive sponsors from rotation and lower down the traffic they get. Many of us aren't whales when it comes to traffic, but put enough minnows together and it can be a whale of a pile of traffic. Zango only works when people are clicking links that lead to these sponsors, so taking away the traffic takes away the potential for sales.

Encourage sponsors to work on improving their systems for catching and reacting to these sorts of "jump on" clicks. Even if cookie / tracking is locked for 5 minutes, it would likely fix many of the issues that are happening here. Getting those sponsors to also more clearly indicate in their terms and conditions that they do not accept traffic from these sorts of sources and that termination without pay is the price might help as well.

Sponsors can either put up or accept to be branded in public and suffer the consequences of their choices.

I agree with a lot of what you have written in your past couple of posts, but unless - which is entirely possible - I have missed something very basic, the damage has already been done before the sponsor ever sees the traffic.

A visitor clicks on one of your links and at that point he is hi-jacked whether to your sponsor (carrying someone else's referrer code) or to another sponsor entirely. So even if an honest sponsor had the means to identify this type of traffic, he could not return it or credit it to its rightful owner. He simply won't have the necessary information.

Sponsors can and should do more to minimize the incentive to steal from their legitimate affiliates, but it isn't helpful to ask them for things which are technically impossible :)

I agree, thats why if we see them doing it, or not doing anything about it, we need to out them so everyone knows they are shady and not trust worthy and to stay away from them.

Eventually if the wise up, very few affiliates will use zango because their accounts will be banned and they wont be paid, they will lose money. And sponsors will stop using it because the backlash is not worth it....

we getting there... it is happening.

bump for the morning crew

A week later, and we sure found out the answer to that one.

so what do you do when it is the sponsor's themselves who are paying zango for the "adware" traffic they are stealing from us ?

some good reading

You drop them as fast as you can. They are DIRECTLY stealing your sales, and knowingly at that.

Missie

Will, have you started to test other scumware yet?

I really don't think zango is the main program used in porn. After their association with Yap browser and publicity with the child porn thing, I don't know how much porn they accept now, if any. Dating ads are quite different, even if it's adult dating, it's not hardcore. Have you seen any porn ads on zango or just dating ads?

Missie

bump for the night crew