Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

llsocial.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 71 posts

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#11

Post by atldev »

This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say.

I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actually read an at-a-glance TOS summary.

What if you could parse a website's TOS and generate the summary? Startup idea :)

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#12

Post by lukeschlather »

atldev wrote: post #11

This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say. I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actu…

There's no understood expectation that Pinterest is going to leave any links you upload to them alone - they are responsible for the data just as much as you are.

I find this much more tolerable than Facebook and most search engines' practice of clicking you through an encoded link, which adds latency for no good reason.

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#13

Post by k-mcgrady »

atldev wrote: post #11

This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say. I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actu…

A bit off topic but I think this is nothing link the Path address book issue. I think a lot of the privacy debates in the last few months have been blown out of proportion but when I saw the Path news I immediately closed my account. Path storing details of all my contacts on their servers without my permission is a huge abuse of my trust. This doesn't seem anything like the Path debate in my opinion.

I do agree that TOS language should be simplified. Something like a simple bulleted list explaining each point of the TOS simply.

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#14

Post by danneu »

> Not disclosing this modification is putting individual stores at a disadvantage when they and their customers are putting in the work of adding pins.

I find it hard to sympathize for the trivial "work of adding pins" when it's Pinterest that created the universe in which those pins even exist and the community that gives them value.

> One specific, problematic issue is that when individual online stores pin their own content, it is unlikely they would insert an affiliate code. But if the store has an affiliate program, it is highly likely that those links now will have an affiliate code in them that gives Pinterest a percentage of any sales.

It's also hard to sympthasize with online stores having to cough up some money for marketing directly to Pinterest's community.

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#15

Post by nickbarnwell »

lukeschlather wrote: post #12
atldev wrote: post #11

This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say. I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actu…

There's no understood expectation that Pinterest is going to leave any links you upload to them alone - they are responsible for the data just as much as you are. I find this much more tolerable than Facebook and most search engines' practice of clicking you through an encoded link, which adds latency for no good reason.

The reason most do that is to rob the site you're visiting of context about the page you're just on. If I click through from a friend's Facebook profile they can't see the referrer URL is, for example, facebook.com/nickbarnwell

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#17

Post by aptwebapps »

dpark wrote: post #2

They should disclose this, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's a good way to make a little money that costs the users nothing (except for users who've attempted to use their own affiliate links).

FTA: "... but also explained that if an affiliate link was in the original pin, Pinterest wouldn’t modify it." If that's true, then there is no cost even for users who have attempted to use their own affiliate links.

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#18

Post by nbm »

lukeschlather wrote: post #12
atldev wrote: post #11

This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand what they're trying to say. I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would actu…

There's no understood expectation that Pinterest is going to leave any links you upload to them alone - they are responsible for the data just as much as you are. I find this much more tolerable than Facebook and most search engines' practice of clicking you through an encoded link, which adds latency for no good reason.

In Facebook's case, this is to protect the user from potentially giving away information about themselves in their Referer header and from potentially malicious links that we didn't have enough information on at display (or email) time, but which we now have enough information to know it is malicious.

This is explained in more detail at https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/link-shim-p...

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#19

Post by thegyppo »

I have absolutely no issues with this:

1. It's the most scalable way for them to generate revenue without shoving ads down your throat.

2. Skimlinks doesn't "modify" your links, they simply put it through a redirect to see if it affiliates. The link you've submitted to Pinterest will likely stay as is.

3. If users submit affiliate links already, then services like Viglink/Skimlinks don't overwrite your cookie (i.e. Reaffiliate it) so those users will continue to see revenue.

Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue

#20

Post by wiredd »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #7
dpark wrote: post #2

They should disclose this, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's a good way to make a little money that costs the users nothing (except for users who've attempted to use their own affiliate links).

Why do you think they should disclose it? (I'm actually curious). The only users affected are those using their own affiliate links so it would have no effect on the vast majority of users. It seems to me that companies are being asked to disclose more and more these days even when it doesn't really affect users and the company has no reason to disclose the information.

I think it's smart to have it disclosed somewhere (FAQ) because people that know what affiliate links look like can figure it out themselves anyway by looking at the links.
Post reply on HN