I recently caught wind of rumors of accusations of cookie stuffing among affiliates including ones on our programs. I can guarantee that cookie stuffing would not work with our system if it was set up properly (which it is). Our system DOES NOT USE COOKIES primarily to track conversions.
(No more details on our system. None of you hackers on WF take this as a challenge please. LOL. I don't put it past your abilities to find a backdoor. Btw, unless you just social engineered it, whoever is getting stats on various network's revenue numbers is just a stud hacker in my book.)
On to what Cookie Stuffing 101 is:
Basically in concept, the goal of cookie stuffing is to replace the conversion tracking cookie of the advertiser with X affiliates information even though Y affiliate drove the traffic there.
Typical Example (not sure if it works anymore):
Amazon has a tracking system that uses cookies to give credit to affiliates who drove traffic to their website and generated sales for 60 days. They have decided to credit the first affiliate who drove traffic there.
USER A clicks on AFFILIATE X's link and goes to Amazon. Amazon places a cookie with Affiliate X's info. USER A decides he isn't going to buy the flesh light at this time as he can't decide which one he wants.
USER A goes away and surfs around the net. In the process they go to a website and picks up spyware. This spyware searches through USER A's cookies and changes the affiliate id in cookies for various merchants including Amazon to AFFILIATE Y's.
Four days go by and USER A sees some Porno and decides he really needs that Tera Patrick fleshlight and runs back to Amazon to buy it. The problem is that AFFILIATE Y gets credit even though AFFILIATE X originally drove the traffic.
(This actually happened with the possible exception of the flesh light, but you never know)
Basically, if the advertiser is too stupid to at least encrypt his cookies, you are vunerable to this. If they encrypt that will at least stop the easier methods of doing this. Pretty much at that point, only the most determined guy can around that.
(No more details on our system. None of you hackers on WF take this as a challenge please. LOL. I don't put it past your abilities to find a backdoor. Btw, unless you just social engineered it, whoever is getting stats on various network's revenue numbers is just a stud hacker in my book.)
On to what Cookie Stuffing 101 is:
Basically in concept, the goal of cookie stuffing is to replace the conversion tracking cookie of the advertiser with X affiliates information even though Y affiliate drove the traffic there.
Typical Example (not sure if it works anymore):
Amazon has a tracking system that uses cookies to give credit to affiliates who drove traffic to their website and generated sales for 60 days. They have decided to credit the first affiliate who drove traffic there.
USER A clicks on AFFILIATE X's link and goes to Amazon. Amazon places a cookie with Affiliate X's info. USER A decides he isn't going to buy the flesh light at this time as he can't decide which one he wants.
USER A goes away and surfs around the net. In the process they go to a website and picks up spyware. This spyware searches through USER A's cookies and changes the affiliate id in cookies for various merchants including Amazon to AFFILIATE Y's.
Four days go by and USER A sees some Porno and decides he really needs that Tera Patrick fleshlight and runs back to Amazon to buy it. The problem is that AFFILIATE Y gets credit even though AFFILIATE X originally drove the traffic.
(This actually happened with the possible exception of the flesh light, but you never know)
Basically, if the advertiser is too stupid to at least encrypt his cookies, you are vunerable to this. If they encrypt that will at least stop the easier methods of doing this. Pretty much at that point, only the most determined guy can around that.
