The article is almost 1000 words, but the title of HN post is more than enough to describe what's going on.
That's called "a good headline" in journalism.
Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
61–70 of 71 posts
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure there is, if you are talking about the links on the pinterest items users hover over and not the eventual destination url of the merchant. Just use an in house link shortner that does a lookup to the original destination url, identify if an affiliate program exists, modify if needed and complete the redirect.
Unless you use an iframe, the affiliated URL will be in the user's address bar at the end of the exercise either way. If you do try to trick that away, there'll still be an HTTP request to the URL unless you proxy the entire page. Someone interested or sufficiently bored will be able to see what is going on.
"Effective" masking of links is relative. To some members of the HN community saying that it is impossible to mask the links is the only empirically correct statement. But my aunt and her pinned collection of knitting crap isn't going to break out an HTTP sniffer to see what is going on behind the scenes, the masking of overt monetization so users continue to labor under the delusion that they aren't being marketed to could be all that is needed to be "effective".
Camouflage doesn't render a soldier invisible but that doesn't mean it's not effective.
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even on Google, that doesn't affect the user at all. I wouldn't mind. However, it would definitely piss off the affiliate program...who should just boot Google from their program. Now that I think about it more, that's the real problem with this. The businesses are most likely getting sales anyway, and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale. Since pinterest can't censor links t…
"and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale." You can't be serious. The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed. Your logic would seem to preclude any affiliate program in existence. If I have a blog reviewing my favorite books, and being a book lover I want to make it easy for people to enjoy books I recommend so I go ahead and place…
You're right, it is ridiculous, but if you were a merchant why would you want to pay out Pinterest? If you didn't pay Pinterest for their leads, wouldn't you still get the same number of sales?
Currently, Pinterest doesn't have a foot to stand on if the affiliate programs simply kick them out. They can do things to bias certain merchants, but that's a riskier play.
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
They may have an issue if this completely changes the scale, demographics, and therefore the economics of their affiliate program. It's one thing to have and affiliate program for bloggers that may bring dozens or hundreds of interested viewers, vs Pinterest bringing thousands or millions of casual viewers. Some (many?) programs will need to adjust their terms for this practice, or they may face one of those Groupon-…
Most affiliate programs I know reward actual purchases, not clicks, and share only a small fraction of profits. I don't see how 100k people ordering a book could ever be a bad thing for Amazon.
Say 100,000 people ordering a book makes $1,000,000 for Amazon.
Say if those 100,000 people came through an affiliate link, they only make $900,000.
If you're Amazon's affiliate manager, indeed your first thought is, "Wow, Pinterest is great! Look at all these sales"
But your second thought is, "Wow, if I just drop Pinterest from my program, I'll make an extra $100,000." In its current state, Pinterest will not do anything to stop these sales from being generated, so the merchants are just throwing away money.
The real problem here is that Pinterest doesn't deserve the commission, Pinterest's users do.
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#65Has facebook experimented with converting links into aff links when possible? How much would that be worth...
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even on Google, that doesn't affect the user at all. I wouldn't mind. However, it would definitely piss off the affiliate program...who should just boot Google from their program. Now that I think about it more, that's the real problem with this. The businesses are most likely getting sales anyway, and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale. Since pinterest can't censor links t…
"and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale." You can't be serious. The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed. Your logic would seem to preclude any affiliate program in existence. If I have a blog reviewing my favorite books, and being a book lover I want to make it easy for people to enjoy books I recommend so I go ahead and place…
"The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest never existed."
That's true, the sale would never had been generated if Pinterest never existed. But the key point here is that the sale would still have been generated even if Pinterest was dropped from the affiliate program. The user generated link would still exist.
As a blogger you could say well I'm not going to link to any Amazon products now. Pinterest doesn't have that luxury. They could remove any links that they can't monetize but users would revolt since they are the ones adding the content and links.
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most affiliate programs I know reward actual purchases, not clicks, and share only a small fraction of profits. I don't see how 100k people ordering a book could ever be a bad thing for Amazon.
Say 100,000 people ordering a book makes $1,000,000 for Amazon. Say if those 100,000 people came through an affiliate link, they only make $900,000. If you're Amazon's affiliate manager, indeed your first thought is, "Wow, Pinterest is great! Look at all these sales" But your second thought is, "Wow, if I just drop Pinterest from my program, I'll make an extra $100,000." In its current state, Pinterest will not do an…
The thing is, if Amazon would have made $1 mil without the affiliate link, they probably will make something along the lines of $990,000 with it.
Also, I am not sure anyone "deserves" the commission. It isn't a right.
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#6815 days ago, in a PR piece about Pinterest, I wondered just how, if at all, it was different from Tumblr. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501938 Well, now I know.
It's not enormously different, but A) you're encouraged to break things up by category ("Clothing", "Art", "Household Items"), B) you can follow all of a person's categories or just some of them, C) it's got a strongly consistent aesthetic - Tumblr is far more customizable (think Facebook vs. Myspace), D) grid-based layout rather than vertical blog style (though Tumblr allows this as well)
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#69It seems like almost no one here takes issue with this... Would it be cool if Google inserted affiliate codes in it's search results (those that apply)? Slippery slope perhaps? Is it really that different?
Even on Google, that doesn't affect the user at all. I wouldn't mind. However, it would definitely piss off the affiliate program...who should just boot Google from their program. Now that I think about it more, that's the real problem with this. The businesses are most likely getting sales anyway, and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the sale. Since pinterest can't censor links t…
Are you sure it wouldn't affect you as a user? If product A's affiliate program has a better percentage payout than competing product B does, then they could easily benefit from promoting company A over product B.
Would you trust them not to?
Soon they're approaching companies and selling placement, charging listing fees, etc.
It's a business and their entitled to do this. As a user I'm entitled to ignore their offerings on the grounds that the way they ultimately profit is at my (the user's) expense. Eventually they're just internet noise with a slick interface.
Re: Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you use an iframe, the affiliated URL will be in the user's address bar at the end of the exercise either way. If you do try to trick that away, there'll still be an HTTP request to the URL unless you proxy the entire page. Someone interested or sufficiently bored will be able to see what is going on.
"Effective" masking of links is relative. To some members of the HN community saying that it is impossible to mask the links is the only empirically correct statement. But my aunt and her pinned collection of knitting crap isn't going to break out an HTTP sniffer to see what is going on behind the scenes, the masking of overt monetization so users continue to labor under the delusion that they aren't being marketed t…
It'll only be effective until a well-placed, shrill-toned media story exposes it to everyone. Be upfront about it and you'll be less likely to find yourself on the wrong end of "deception" charges, however trifle and ultimately meaningless the deception is.