Affiliate Marketers Could Face 20 Years In Prison For Cookie Stuffing:
At this very moment there are a ton of affiliate marketers who are sweating bullets. And that is because the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Department has handed down two indictments last month charging two affiliate marketers with wire fraud and criminal forfeiture for engaging in the industry practice known as “Cookie Stuffing.”
After appearing in court on July 22, 2010, the two defendants were released on $100,000 bond.
This indictment stems from a lawsuit filed by eBay in August of 2008 where the online auction giant contends that the affiliates generated “hidden” clicks to their respective affiliate links without an actual physical click from the customer — which is known as cookie stuffing.
I know of several affiliate marketers who both use this strategy and teach the technique to their students. I’ve never used it and have found the practice to be deceptive. And quite frankly, I am glad the feds are cracking down on this activity.
To me, the message is clear: Run your business above board and you will never have to worry about stuff like this. You’ll sleep a lot better at night and you will protect the business you have worked so hard to build.
If you would like more specifics on the indictment, Kellie Stevens at ReveNews.com has authored a detailed account. Here is the link to her article: Affiliate Indicted For Cookie Stuffing.
I agree with you that it’s better to stay away from these cookie stuffing and other illegal technique that could get you into trouble. Having the peace of mind just worth so much more. Thanks for sharing the story.
Justin:
Unfortunately, we live in a society where a lot of people want “quick success” and they are not willing to do things the right way. I am certainly guilty of getting impatient and wanting things in my business to happen “right now.” But when it comes to building and operating a web business, we are all so much better off in the “long run” if we do it right.
Because of the huge buzz surrounding the recent launch of Perpetual Traffic Formula, I decided to do some research of the top ranked pages for the keyword “Perpetual Traffic Formula.” What surprised me was the high number of marketers who had pages ranked for this term but had no Disclosure Agreement on their sites.
I don’t get it. These guys go to all the work to get their pages ranked high for that very profitable keyphrase, then they don’t take a few minutes to put up a Disclosure Agreement to make sure they are FTC compliant.
I think they are asking for trouble.