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How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

businessinsider.com

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Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#31

Post by thetrumanshow »

rayiner wrote: post #29
thetrumanshow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but the line that defines fraud is scarily unclear, IMO. Should the Airbnb founders be sent to prison for spoofing interest in Craigslist ads and breaking their TOS? If the consensus shifts to yes, then our industry will become a very scary place to invest time and energy.

Tricking people for profit is the definition of fraud. It says a sad thing about the industry that shady practices like that are considered important enough that it would be "scary" to have to abstain from them.

I've never engaged in any of those kinds of practices, but did find them both clever and fascinating when I read about them ~3 years ago. I never thought of them as being illegal until today.

I guess I'm just concerned with the trend. Things we think of as clever today may land people in prison. Its interesting and scary that we might not see it coming.

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#32

Post by rayiner »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #31
rayiner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tricking people for profit is the definition of fraud. It says a sad thing about the industry that shady practices like that are considered important enough that it would be "scary" to have to abstain from them.

I've never engaged in any of those kinds of practices, but did find them both clever and fascinating when I read about them ~3 years ago. I never thought of them as being illegal until today. I guess I'm just concerned with the trend. Things we think of as clever today may land people in prison. Its interesting and scary that we might not see it coming.

There is nothing clever about misrepresenting yourself to people in business dealings. It doesn't necessarily have to be illegal, but it's always shady.

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#33

Post by Sujan »

belorn wrote: post #13

> Much of Hogan's apartment was a clutter of screens, hard drives and keyboards — which the FBI confiscated. That must have been some very advanced and dangerous looking screens and keyboards. Why do we still accept this kind of confiscation of unrelated goods, while throwing big objections if the police had confiscated jewelery, clothes, or anything other non-connected but expensive items? By now, for all the tons o…

Probably not, but for example some police officer is probably still very happy about one of my monitors I used on my gaming machine when I was 14 ;)

(And yeah, I'm totally ok with it)

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#34

Post by Sujan »

curiousdannii wrote: post #2

"So eBay installed a tiny “gif” file on its homepage. A gif is simply an image file. This one was so tiny no one could see it. It sat there invisibly."

Does anyone get what the author actually means in the "invisible gif" paragraph? Makes no sense to me how this could actually have helped to decide if the traffic was real or malicious :/

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#35

Post by Sujan »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #8
ianhawes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iframe of the affiliate link. eBay sets the required cookies.

Wait, so they just rendered an iframe of a random product on ebay that contained their affiliate information on a bunch of widgets they hosted ... and this lands you in prison? Lets imagine I publish an eBay widget (I don't) to promote products I think people should buy. Lets say the widget just renders products in my sidebar. Lets say thousands of blogs then install this. Would I be then bound for prison? I'm strugg…

- If the iframe is visible = legally ok, but probably against TOS of Ebay's affiliate program as you can/should/may only place their stuff on _your_ pages

- If the iframe is invisible = fraud

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#36

Post by thetrumanshow »

rayiner wrote: post #32
thetrumanshow wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never engaged in any of those kinds of practices, but did find them both clever and fascinating when I read about them ~3 years ago. I never thought of them as being illegal until today. I guess I'm just concerned with the trend. Things we think of as clever today may land people in prison. Its interesting and scary that we might not see it coming.

There is nothing clever about misrepresenting yourself to people in business dealings. It doesn't necessarily have to be illegal, but it's always shady.

Don't misrepresent yourself - That's actually an incredibly good and concise guideline for avoiding trouble.

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#37

Post by Proleps »

rayiner wrote: post #29
thetrumanshow wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but the line that defines fraud is scarily unclear, IMO. Should the Airbnb founders be sent to prison for spoofing interest in Craigslist ads and breaking their TOS? If the consensus shifts to yes, then our industry will become a very scary place to invest time and energy.

Tricking people for profit is the definition of fraud. It says a sad thing about the industry that shady practices like that are considered important enough that it would be "scary" to have to abstain from them.

> Tricking people for profit is the definition of fraud.

This would make 90% of all applications/websites fraud. Most free(gratis) Windows software tricks you into installing spyware & toolbars. Almost every app on your phone tricks you into giving away personal data. Almost every website tricks you into being tracked across multiple websites.

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#38

Post by danielweber »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #30
thetrumanshow wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so they just rendered an iframe of a random product on ebay that contained their affiliate information on a bunch of widgets they hosted ... and this lands you in prison? Lets imagine I publish an eBay widget (I don't) to promote products I think people should buy. Lets say the widget just renders products in my sidebar. Lets say thousands of blogs then install this. Would I be then bound for prison? I'm strugg…

Yes, this entire story makes no sense. They just attacked their own affiliate base and tried to paint it as a good thing. Did these two people featured in the story do anything that was against US Federal law? Did they violate the eBay affiliates agreement (and that can't result in criminal charges anyhow)? I've read through all three pages of the story twice, and all I'm seeing is eBay wanted to have their cake and…

You pay me $100 for every 10 people I get to fill out a card with their mailing address asking for a catalogue from your company.

I take 1000 of the cards and put random people's names and addresses on them and send them in, once a week every week.

Fraud.

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#39

Post by milesskorpen »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #25
milesskorpen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that line might be vague, are you arguing that this example _isn't_ fraud? I'm sure they violated the affiliate network terms of service — which is one thing if you're an individual user, but when it's a business contract, terms become much more important. Moreover, these guys had to know they were in violation of the spirit of these programs — affiliate marketing is _marketing_, which they were doing none of.

Heh. Nope, not _arguing_ that, because arguing what constitutes fraud and what does not belongs ONLY to the administrators of said governing laws. If I were presiding over this specific case, and had a breadth of understanding that confirmed they were cookie-stuffing beyond a doubt, I would move to convict them. I do think the line that separates a civil matter and a criminal matter is unclear at times. Further edit:…

Nope. Was't referring to Airbnb. You say you think fraud is vaguely defined. Which might be true (I don't know enough). But this seems like it crosses a pretty bright line.

Re: How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison

#40

Post by makomk »

AznHisoka wrote: post #21
smackfu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I would think the big dog for affiliate payments is Amazon, and they don't really have much in the way of coupons.

Amazon has a 24-hour cookie. So you get paid even if someone clicks on your link and buys something else later in the day. I wouldn't be surprised if this accounted for a huge majority of their affiliate payouts. Cases where someone buys a product directly from Amazon after reading a review are a minority, imo.

Yeah. At one point I was seeing pop-up ads on some sites that were simply random searches on Amazon - I assume they were trying to take advantage of Amazon's affiliate scheme.
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