Reportedly eBay is suing 3 affiliates for cookie stuffing and fraud they allegedly committed through Commission Junction from 2003 - 2007. One of the defendants is pretty high profile and is someone many of you out there know! Shawn Hogan, the owner of Digital Point Forums.

For the blackhatters out there that say “cookie stuffing isn’t illegal and all is fair in love and affiliate marketing” - I say you better take a very close look at this case!

I’ve been researching the story which was first thought to be clever link bait but now appears to be true. I’ve found legal documents that support the story and are much too detailed to be created for link bait. Here is the 1st report I found about it this morning.

eBay Files Lawsuit Against Cookie Stuffers - “Three men defrauded eBay in a “cookie stuffing” scheme that made it appear the men’s companies should be paid commissions, eBay claims in Federal Court. It sued Shawn Hogan and Digital Point Solutions, Todd Dunning and Kessler’s Flying Circus, and Brian Dunning and Thunderwood Holdings.”

That blog references a news story here: eBay Sues Alleged ‘Cookie Stuffers’. Justia lists it in it’s Federal District Court filings

Here are a couple of choice quotes from the court filing (PDF below). There were 6 charges filed including mail fraud, wire fraud, racketeering and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. (DPS stands for Digital Point Solutions - KFC stands for Kessler’s Flying Circus)

PDF of Court Filing 8/25/08.

Nature of Suit: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
(See RICO Act in comment #1 for seriousness of these charges)

“24. eBay is informed and believes and, on that basis, alleges that DPS and KFC each ccomplished their cookie stuffing through software programs and/or code that, unbeknownst to the user, redirected the user’s computer to the eBay website without the user actually clicking on an eBay advertisement link, or even becoming aware that they had left the page they were previously viewing. As a result, the eBay site would be
prompted to drop an eBay cookie on the user’s computer even though the user never clicked on an eBay advertisement or even realized that their computer had ever visited the eBay site”

44. The members of the Hogan Group and Dunning Group each committed multiple violations of the predicate act of mail and wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. $ 1343, through their cookie stuffing schemes. Specifically, schemes to defraud eBay existed by which the members of the Hogan Group and Dunning Group each stuffed eBay cookies onto computers for the purpose of defrauding eBay of commission fees due only for legitimate
Revenue Actions associated with a given affiliate.

There’s a 7 page thread at DigitalPoint Forum: Shawn Hogan (Owner of DP) Is Getting Sued For Cooking Stuffing So far Shawn has neither had the thread closed or replied. But he has not posted on his own forum since April, so not sure what’s up with that.

It sounds to me like what they were accused of doing, at least in part, is this black hat cookie stuffing method I blogged about recently. Warning - New Affiliate Cookie Stuffing Forum Trick - Stealing Sales. I still am getting several inquiries a week from worried forum owners who want to find out how the black hatters are doing this particular cookie stuffing method. And just this week ironically I was discussing the problem over at the eBay EPN affiliate forum.

I’ve been doing some research on some black hat forums and reading about some of the new cookie stuffing scripts I’m finding popping in various places. These black hat programs are getting pretty sophisticated and have all kinds of options built in to try to help avoid detection.

We have to remember innocent until proven guilty. Shawn et al have not gone to court yet. But since eBay just dropped 300 affiliates and some say that at least part of those were cookie stuffing, you have to wonder if they are using this suit to send a warning, make an example and set a precedence. I hope it works and they scare some cookie stuffers into changing their ways.

UPDATE: 8/29 I think I’ll have a couple things to add today.

I just hate it when I get so mad on a forum I TYPE IN BIG RED BOLD CAPS!!! INCREDIBLE Custom Cookie Stuffing Script - Truly Unique!. Sorry dude that Dan and I took your sales thread off topic!