(no subject)

[arethinn]

LJ appears to be pulling the script that was usurping affiliate links (see http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/87066.html for example) but the question remains, why on earth would they sneakily be doing that in the first place? And regardless of whether anyone in particular lost revenue due to LJ being inserted as the affiliate (is my understanding), it's still an awful privacy issue.

edit: from here http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/585577.html:

marta has posted some information saying the code was supposed to add "this link came via lj" affiliate info to non affiliated links -- which makes a lot more sense (and sounds thankfully less sinister) than hijacking people's links and taking them to advertisers, but didn't work as expected. It's still being scrapped.

But, um. I may have misunderstood, but that sounds like they were hoping to inject their own affiliate info onto a "naked" link, and make money from (e.g.) Amazon links posted without the poster's knowledge or consent. Someone want to correct me?

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think you misunderstood at all.

Once I figured out what was going on, I was really, really not amused, because of that. They may have a right to do that---although there's a question of if we're renting space on their servers, how much are we entitled to, you know, them not making more money off of that same space---but it is really ugly.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

> that sounds like they were hoping to inject their own affiliate info onto a "naked" link, and make money from (e.g.) Amazon links ...

Honestly, this part of it doesn't bug me. If you have a naked ecommerce link, you already are getting no benefit from putting it up, and whether $0.50 from someone buying a book through that link goes to Big Corporation #1 (the book seller) or Big Corporation #2 (the journal hosting provider) shouldn't make a whit of difference to you.

> ... posted without the poster's knowledge or consent.

However. This is not cool. When LJ not only sneaks code onto their production servers, but sneaks on code that's designed to hide its own effects, they're demonstrating their willingness to unilaterally change the terms of our relationship. Now it's a trust issue, and their track record on trust issues is bad and getting worse.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

If you have a naked ecommerce link, you already are getting no benefit from putting it up, and whether $0.50 from someone buying a book through that link goes to Big Corporation #1 (the book seller) or Big Corporation #2 (the journal hosting provider) shouldn't make a whit of difference to you.

It does, although I am having trouble articulating why, besides the question of the fact that I should have been asked to opt in to this program. It seems to me to "pollute" the links somehow even so... if I were just browsing around on LiveJournal, I would never be able to be sure if someone had opted in to this program and whether my clicking a link was giving money to LiveJournal without my knowledge. I suppose affiliate links can always be disguised like that, but generally they are made transparent because the poster thinks of the affiliation as an incentive: they hope that I will want to click it precisely because it gives them money (e.g., Satellite News asks that if you buy MST3K sets from Amazon to please use their affiliate link).

they're demonstrating their willingness to unilaterally change the terms of our relationship.

Which they can do, I'm sure; this is one of those kind of services where it's "these are the terms, which we can change, and if you don't like it, leave; continuing to use the service is consent". Usually they're supposed to notify users on changes, though... :-/