Dunno if you guys have heard, but MS and HP have reached yet another shonky deal.
Apparently, all new HP machines are gonna ship with the toolbar preinstalled into IE (isn't this similar to what the anti-trust suit was about the first time around?)
For those of you pre-selling actual products, and have gone the google specific SEO route (or even AdWords), this is really fucked.
Basically, the MS-CB bar will "remind" people that MS' preferred partners have rebates of $X amount or Y% if they go through the MSN-Live CB portal.
Which got me thinking, if you're getting say 10% as the affiliate, but MS is offering people 15% cash back, are those retailers really going to be making money (particularly the cut rate ones) if people come across your site through MS?
I'm thinking "no"... But what I'm also thinking is that to avoid this sort of cock up, the cookies that let the retailers know people have come off the back of your hard work may disappear when they attempt to go in for the discount.
Which makes it doubly fucked if you're paying for ads on MSN, and my paranoia turns out to be founded.
Thoughts anyone?
Apparently, all new HP machines are gonna ship with the toolbar preinstalled into IE (isn't this similar to what the anti-trust suit was about the first time around?)
For those of you pre-selling actual products, and have gone the google specific SEO route (or even AdWords), this is really fucked.
Basically, the MS-CB bar will "remind" people that MS' preferred partners have rebates of $X amount or Y% if they go through the MSN-Live CB portal.
Which got me thinking, if you're getting say 10% as the affiliate, but MS is offering people 15% cash back, are those retailers really going to be making money (particularly the cut rate ones) if people come across your site through MS?
I'm thinking "no"... But what I'm also thinking is that to avoid this sort of cock up, the cookies that let the retailers know people have come off the back of your hard work may disappear when they attempt to go in for the discount.
Which makes it doubly fucked if you're paying for ads on MSN, and my paranoia turns out to be founded.
Thoughts anyone?
