I hate for this to be my first post but I still think its important enough that everyone should know about it. I've been lurking these forums for quite some time and find it only proper to contribute. Here's something I've learned in the past day: We currently operate a multi-million dollar affiliate program and one outstanding affiliate recently came into my crosshairs. Basically, Zango (formerly 180Solutions / MetricsDirect) hasn't cleaned up their act quite as much as they would like everyone to believe. They're definitely guilty and the infraction is cookie stuffing. It is my understanding that these rogue practices make up for a significant portion of their revenue. We alone have been duped out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by Zango through our affiliate program and never even realized it until now. They do the same thing with hundreds of affiliate programs all over the web and here's how it works: Zango (the notorious adware company) subscribes to our affiliate program under the name MetricsDirect. Zango then pushes their affiliate URL to their users (victims - some 20 million give or take) whenever possible. Here are some cases in which this is happening - for example: An infected user types in our url directly An infected user clicks one of our google or other PPC ads An infected user visits the site of another affiliate An infected user visits a site containing related content / key terms In each case the Zango software will delay a few seconds before it finally pushes a new browser window through with our site (in many cases completely covering the original browser window) which they of course access through their affiliate URL which they signed up for ensuring they recieve the commission for any possible sales. This unethical, immoral and downright dirty practice tags them for commission when they shouldn't recieve any commission at all (such as when a user enters our URL directly or when a user clicks one of our PPC ads which we pay top dollar for.) Further, this practice is stealing away commissions from other honest affiliates as well after their cookie is overwritten by Zango's shenanigans. This is just a heads up to anyone who runs an affiliate program and the honest, hardworking affiliates themselves so you can understand whats going on and don't fall victim to these crooks like we did and so many others have. Thanks for taking the time to read this and best of luck with your affiliate programs!
Good overview of what happens from the merchant side. I've written tons here at DP about all the effects it has on affiliates.
Thanks. I'll have to do a search and take a look at what some other people on here have been experiencing.
Something tells me that Zango is ripe for a class action lawsuit. Has anyone taken apart Zango's malware to see how it works and figure out a way to combat what they do? Any respectable Affiliate program who sees that there was a previous placed affiliate cookie that hasn't expired yet shouldn't let it be overwritten. Or, do most affiliate programs not care? Zen
Zango has to go. We at MN fight again all these wares for some time now. It would be advisable that all companies would start to test and basically created situation where their accounts get shut left and right.
everyone knows they're adware, they used to be called loudcash at some point and they kept changing name...
thats true... even i herd abt that... but again i feel that was because of Adwares.. as they are not allowed in UK
Oops, my mistake. Zango were recently fined $3 million dollars over the company's "unfair and deceptive" methods of distributing its adware.
I'm sick of Zango (zangocash, loudcash, whatever) bashing. If the affiliate networks weren't more interested in paying out these guys than us, they would fix the damn cookies so they couldn't be "stuffed." How hard is it to write a script that prevents a damned cookie from being overwritten less than 3 seconds later? All cookies are time stamped so give me a break. Write the script, pay the affiliates, and stop the bitching. SMcG
Wow, settle down there bud. We, like so many other affiliate program owners, have our affiliate program hosted by another company (1shoppingcart) and getting them to rewrite their code isn't quite that easy. Believe me we've tried. By the way how could any decent person ever get sick of Zango bashing?