“Is it OK to serve full page pop unders of CJ links?” someone asks in the following forum thread. Many affiliates that reply do not know the answer. The answer is NO. It’s considered cookie-stuffing or setting forced clicks – I consider it commission stealing and besides that it’s bad for the online marketing industry in general.

Some affiliates basically say – hey if it helps ME increase sales then I will do it and don’t CARE if it’s stealing from other affiliates. Read the discussion here: WebMasterWorld – CJ Popups ok?

no pop ups

I get on my high horse about integrity and cookies issues once again. Here is the reply I posted: “In addition to the fact that some of the networks prohibit iframes and pop unders, many of the programs we manage, specifically state in our own program TOS that these practices are prohibited. Why, because cookie stuffing – ie. setting a cookie without a REAL click by the consumer CAN steal commissions from the rightful affiliate that actually did the selling and created a REAL click from the consumer – and we don’t think that’s fair. The affiliate that initiated the REAL click is the one that should be paid period.

I think it’s ironic that some of the affiliates that complain about parasites stealing ‘their’ commish are the same ones that think its OK to take commission from other honest affiliates.

On a bigger and even more important note however, pops hurt our ENTIRE industry and EVERYONE’S income – even the ones serving the pops. So if you serve pops you are hurting your own pocketbook. WHY? Consumers are bombarded with pops and don’t like them. Many of the pops are served by adware and spyware, therefore creating more consumers that buy anti-spyware, internet security and firewall software. Most of this software blocks CJ and other major network ads.

MANY of these programs also delete affiliate cookies, which means it does not matter who set the cookie – the merchant will get the sale but NO affiliate will be paid. DON’T POP!

Wonder where that thread will head now? Did I flame it or kill it? ;-)