
Pinterest quietly modifying users links to generate affiliate revenue  - bproper
http://llsocial.com/2012/02/pinterest-modifying-user-submitted-pins/
======
thegyppo
I have absolutely no issues with this:

1\. It's the most scalable way for them to generate revenue without shoving
ads down your throat.

2\. Skimlinks doesn't "modify" your links, they simply put it through a
redirect to see if it affiliates. The link you've submitted to Pinterest will
likely stay as is.

3\. If users submit affiliate links already, then services like
Viglink/Skimlinks don't overwrite your cookie (i.e. Reaffiliate it) so those
users will continue to see revenue.

~~~
colinsidoti
It's awesome that skimlinks exists...years ago I worked for a company that
relied on affiliate revenue and we had someone working full time to maintain
relationships. I imagine they lose some of the pickier affiliate programs, but
this is an awesome way to test out the revenue model.

It also brings up another interesting point. If this revenue model works for
pinterest, it means it could also work for pinterest users. Someone can create
a browser plugin that automatically converts user links to affiliate links
when they get posted to pinterest, and kicks back the commission to the
poster. Probably too hard to distribute the plugin, but still thought it was
worth mentioning.

~~~
thegyppo
Skimlinks does have subids I think, so technically they could "share" the
revenue with users if they wanted to. Hypothetically.

------
danneu
> _Not disclosing this modification is putting individual stores at a
> disadvantage when they and their customers are putting in the work of adding
> pins._

I find it hard to sympathize for the trivial "work of adding pins" when it's
Pinterest that created the universe in which those pins even exist and the
community that gives them value.

> _One specific, problematic issue is that when individual online stores pin
> their own content, it is unlikely they would insert an affiliate code. But
> if the store has an affiliate program, it is highly likely that those links
> now will have an affiliate code in them that gives Pinterest a percentage of
> any sales._

It's also hard to sympthasize with online stores having to cough up some money
for marketing directly to Pinterest's community.

~~~
AJ007
Easy solution for the store, terminate the affiliate relationship.

------
dpark
They should disclose this, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's a
good way to make a little money that costs the users nothing (except for users
who've attempted to use their own affiliate links).

~~~
k-mcgrady
Why do you think they should disclose it? (I'm actually curious). The only
users affected are those using their own affiliate links so it would have no
effect on the vast majority of users.

It seems to me that companies are being asked to disclose more and more these
days even when it doesn't really affect users and the company has no reason to
disclose the information.

~~~
wiredd
I think it's smart to have it disclosed somewhere (FAQ) because people that
know what affiliate links look like can figure it out themselves anyway by
looking at the links.

~~~
k-mcgrady
But why does that matter? What does anyone gain from knowing that they are
using affiliate links? What does anyone lose from not knowing?

~~~
wiredd
I don't think there is an effective way to hide the use of affiliate links, so
they may as well disclose it in their FAQ or TOS just to avoid complaints that
they're not being genuine towards their users.

~~~
jbigelow76
Sure there is, if you are talking about the links on the pinterest items users
hover over and not the eventual destination url of the merchant. Just use an
in house link shortner that does a lookup to the original destination url,
identify if an affiliate program exists, modify if needed and complete the
redirect.

~~~
jarek
Unless you use an iframe, the affiliated URL will be in the user's address bar
at the end of the exercise either way. If you do try to trick that away,
there'll still be an HTTP request to the URL unless you proxy the entire page.
Someone interested or sufficiently bored will be able to see what is going on.

~~~
jbigelow76
"Effective" masking of links is relative. To some members of the HN community
saying that it is impossible to mask the links is the only empirically correct
statement. But my aunt and her pinned collection of knitting crap isn't going
to break out an HTTP sniffer to see what is going on behind the scenes, the
masking of overt monetization so users continue to labor under the delusion
that they aren't being marketed to could be all that is needed to be
"effective".

Camouflage doesn't render a soldier invisible but that doesn't mean it's not
effective.

~~~
jarek
It'll only be effective until a well-placed, shrill-toned media story exposes
it to everyone. Be upfront about it and you'll be less likely to find yourself
on the wrong end of "deception" charges, however trifle and ultimately
meaningless the deception is.

------
gokhan
The article is almost 1000 words, but the title of HN post is more than enough
to describe what's going on.

~~~
rokhayakebe
He could've just pinned that photo showing the link.

------
gst
DuckDuckGo (the search engine) is doing the same. E.g., search for something
that returns Amazon search result, and the link to Amazon will have their
affiliate tag included.

A positive point, however, is that they are open about this on their website:
[http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216405-m...](http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216405-making-
money)

~~~
rplnt
It is not really the same as DDG is providing the links itself while pinterest
is modifying user submitted links. However, I have no problem with either of
them. It would be nice of they said it in their FAQ (or wherever) as DDG did.

------
spacemanaki
Does Stack Overflow also do this, at least with Amazon links? Someone please
correct me if I'm wrong because I wouldn't want to spread misinformation. But
IIRC Amazon links turn into something like "rads.stackoverflow.com/..." which
I always assumed were affiliate. I think it's pretty reasonable, as others
have pointed out.

~~~
ak86
Yup, Stack Overflow does do that:
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-
inserting...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-inserting-
stack-overflow-affiliate-into-all-amazon-book-links) and
[http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-
advertising...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising-
experiment/)

------
rapind
It seems like almost no one here takes issue with this... Would it be cool if
Google inserted affiliate codes in it's search results (those that apply)?
Slippery slope perhaps? Is it really that different?

~~~
colinsidoti
Even on Google, that doesn't affect the user at all. I wouldn't mind.

However, it would definitely piss off the affiliate program...who should just
boot Google from their program.

Now that I think about it more, that's the real problem with this. The
businesses are most likely getting sales anyway, and pinterest can't argue
that they're doing anything special to generate the sale. Since pinterest
can't censor links to these merchants, they'll probably end up getting booted
from their programs.

~~~
jbigelow76
"and pinterest can't argue that they're doing anything special to generate the
sale."

You can't be serious. The sales would never have been generated in the first
place if pinterest never existed. Your logic would seem to preclude any
affiliate program in existence. If I have a blog reviewing my favorite books,
and being a book lover I want to make it easy for people to enjoy books I
recommend so I go ahead and place links to Amazon. Should Amazon say "well you
we're going to link to us regardless, so you aren't eligible."

~~~
seizetheday
"The sales would never have been generated in the first place if pinterest
never existed."

That's true, the sale would never had been generated if Pinterest never
existed. But the key point here is that the sale would still have been
generated even if Pinterest was dropped from the affiliate program. The user
generated link would still exist.

As a blogger you could say well I'm not going to link to any Amazon products
now. Pinterest doesn't have that luxury. They could remove any links that they
can't monetize but users would revolt since they are the ones adding the
content and links.

------
tpiddy
I remember reading Posterous is using skimlink's competitor Viglink
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1309403>

The real question is WHY would companies let Posterous or Pinterest become
affiliates at all? Where are the incremental sales? It makes sense for
businesses to encourage USERS to become affiliates and promote their products,
but allowing user-gen site to monetize their users' links does not encourage
their users to link and promote products more.

------
rgrieselhuber
I don't really see the problem here. At most it should be an update to their
TOS and call it a day.

------
cek
It appears that Pinterest is violating the Amazon Affiliates operating
agreement.

[https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement...](https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_t=501&ref_=amb_link_84018271_7&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_s=assoc-
right-1&pf_rd_r=&pf_rd_i=assoc_join_menu)

Specifically:

    
    
      “Prohibited Paid Search Placement” means an advertisement
      that you purchased through bidding on keywords, search
      terms, or other identifiers (including Proprietary Terms)
      or other participation in keyword auctions. “Proprietary
      Term” means keywords, search terms, or other identifiers
      that include the word “amazon,” “endless,” “Kindle,”
      “smallparts,” “myhabit,” or “Javari,” or any other
      trademark of Amazon or its affiliates ( see a non-
      exhaustive list of our trademarks), or variations or 
      misspellings of any of those words (e.g., “ammazon,” 
      “amaozn,” “endlss,” “enldess,” “smalparts,” “kindel,” and
      “javary”). “Redirecting Link” means a link that sends
      users indirectly to the Amazon Site via an intermediate
      site or webpage and without requiring the user to click on 
      a link or take some other affirmative action on that
      intermediate site or webpage. “Search Engine” means Google, 
      Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine, portal, sponsored 
      advertising service, or other search or referral service, 
      or any site that participates in any of their respective 
      networks.
    

Pinterest falls under both "Redirecting Link" and "Search Engine" parts of
this clause.

In addition:

Section 10 requires affiliates sites to state they are an affilliate:

    
    
      You must, however, clearly state the following on your
      site: “[Insert your name] is a participant in the Amazon
      Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising 
      program designed to provide a means for sites to earn 
      advertising fees by advertising and linking to [insert the
      applicable site name (amazon.com, endless.com, 
      smallparts.com or myhabit.com)].”

~~~
dangrossman
You're totally off base on the first part.

1) Prohibited paid search placement: This only applies to bidding on placement
on search engines. Pinterest has not bid on terms on their own site, so that
section has no relevance even if Pinterest itself could be considered a search
engine.

2) Redirecting links: This prohibits placing links that point to an
intermediate page that then redirects to Amazon. Pinterest is linking directly
to Amazon (with affiliate identifiers in the query string), not to an
intermediate page that performs any redirection.

~~~
chl
Any idea what the "redirecting links" clause means for URL shorteners and
other redirect-based services?

~~~
ohashi
I think it has to be taken in the context of paid search placement. You can't
arbitrage/hide the traffic source(and the keyword for paid search) from amazon
through redirection.

------
nhangen
Really surprised that no one has a problem with this.

How would we feel if PG turned every Apple, Amazon, or other ecommerce link
into an affiliate link, with our name pinned to it? Horrible decision on their
part, and I think it's going to bite them in the ass when the average user
gets wind of it.

~~~
kreutz
The average "Pinterest User" has no idea what an affiliate link is.

------
sbierwagen
15 days ago, in a PR piece about Pinterest, I wondered just how, if at all, it
was different from Tumblr.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3501938>

Well, now I know.

~~~
nollidge
It's not enormously different, but A) you're encouraged to break things up by
category ("Clothing", "Art", "Household Items"), B) you can follow all of a
person's categories or just some of them, C) it's got a strongly consistent
aesthetic - Tumblr is far more customizable (think Facebook vs. Myspace), D)
grid-based layout rather than vertical blog style (though Tumblr allows this
as well)

------
atldev
This reminds me of the debate on Path's address book upload activity. I don't
think it was malicious. It could be covered in a TOS update. But I rarely read
the TOS for a site. When I do, it's a serious investment of time to understand
what they're trying to say.

I think we need to simplify TOS language and standardize on a set of images to
represent privacy, affiliation, and payment terms for a service. I would
actually read an at-a-glance TOS summary.

What if you could parse a website's TOS and generate the summary? Startup idea
:)

~~~
olefoo
It's been tried <http://khulaproject.com/>

I don't think it's a particularly viable business, it might be a good feature
of a larger business that was focused on helping customers navigate the
complexities of modern life; but on it's own, the value in one instance is too
small to motivate purchasing.

~~~
tylergb
It's not a viable business, the potential for revenue generation is very small
without resorting to questionable tactics (see TRUSTe). I was hoping it would
function more as a community effort with the human-readable TOS hosted on the
relevant site much like Creative Commons. Sadly I think the human-readable TOS
is going to have to come from the business itself (or possibly from an
established user-rights organization, i.e. CC or EFF).

As for Path's storage of user contacts; while I find the practice sketchy,
especially since I just signed up for Path and had no idea this was happening,
but not unexpected especially considering facebook's status as a 'role-model'
for privacy issues.

Side-note: Khula Project in its current form is deadpooled. I do plan to
relaunch sometime in the future with a project more focused on information
distribution.

------
mcu
This is what deal forums have done since time immemorial (1996-ish).

------
mbertrand
Don't see why they should/would disclose this to users. Does not affect the
end users experience unless they are in fact adding their own affiliate links.
I find the point the author made about bloggers disclosing the use of
affiliate links a stretch. I can see his point but pinterest is not a blog,
they're a business and want to/should produce revenue.

------
feint
I don't see this as a problem at all. From a user perspective, I would much
rather see this than flashy banner ads polluting the experience.

The same thing happens on sites such as RetailMeNot.

Good on Pinterest for monetizing and they should continue being aggressive and
explore other opportunities.

------
CiaranR
Skimlinks has officially responded -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3566369>

------
vardy
Has facebook experimented with converting links into aff links when possible?
How much would that be worth...

