Both affiliates and merchants should be aware of this contextual adware application which is already acting as an affiliate in multiple affiliate programs. Here’s a screenshot of their information from Commission Junction (taken off their today’s application into an affiliate program):

Why should you be concerned?

Well, they are not exactly a “Virtual Mall” as they try to portray themselves on CJ. Kellie Stevens has more:

This is a contextual adware application which displays a web site (the ad) based on the web site the end user is currently viewing. The trigger for the ad display can be based on a URL or keywords from the viewed web page…

Revenue Generation Behavior

We observed two primary revenue sources for the LinksAdor adware:

• Affiliate links belonging to LinksAdor. We have found multiple affiliate accounts on various web sites owned by LinksAdor.
• Displays of ads purchased by advertisers on a CPV/PPV model. These ad buys can be by other affiliates and we have documented such instances. Merchants may also engage in these ad buys directly. In other instances, the ad buys may display PPCSE listings [source and more detailed information].

Why you do not want this affiliate aboard your program? Because LinksAdor has been documented to:

(a) Open up new browser tabs with affiliate ads of competing merchants, or diverting traffic from one merchant to another, but through an in-between affiliate site of their own [see this video]

and

(b) Hijack browsers, redirecting visitors to the page of user’s choice but through a LinksAdor’s affiliate link, or interjecting themselves into the sales channel without actually adding any value: neither to the end consumer, nor to the merchant [see this video]

For more details please read the following material, and stay away from LinksAdor:

• LinksAdor Adware Fact Sheet
• LinksAdor (Kellie’s thread at ABestWeb)

Today Kellie Stevens of AffiliateFairPlay.com has published her first free public adware reports:

The two reports that are already available are:

(i) A report on AllFreeCoupons, a Firefox add-on which displays coupon/deal notifications when the visitor is on a website that may have such available, and also offers the website visitor to share the deal via Facebook or Twitter.

and

(ii) A report on DealAlert, a “shopping assistant” desktop application which “displays instant alerts of product deals and coupons added to the PocketDeal web site.”

Both act affiliates, and the affiliate cookie is being set when the adware user clicks on a deal/coupon alert/notification. In case with DealAlert, “incidents of the affiliate tracking link being set” before “a physical click by the end user” was  not registered [see comments under this post for details], but alerts are coded through affiliate links with a purpose of setting that affiliate cookie. With AllFreeCoupons, on the other hand, channel cannibalization is present, and “the extension does not directly drive unique visitors to the merchant’s web site as it is activated only when the end user is already on the merchant’s site.” Read more by following the two above-quoted links.

The information that Kellie shares [like the above, or this] is a must read for both affiliates and merchants. Affiliates do not want to waste their time and money partnering with merchants that have such affiliates on board; while merchants (and their affiliate program managers) must be educated on such rogue affiliates not to harm their affiliate, and other online marketing initiatives, by letting them into their affiliate program(s).

Yesterday an important information has been posted by Kellie Stevens of Affiliate Fair Play in the 5StarAffiliatePrograms’ forum. Her alert is about a fairly newly created contextual adware that operates according to a model similar to Zango, Clicksor, or MediaTraffic. As an advertiser, you may buy traffic on DirectCPV.com which will be driven to you through their LoudMo adware. LoudMo also has a pay-per-install affiliate program (paying affiliates $1.25/install) to spread their downloadable software to Internet users. Once the adware is installed, it will display DirectCPV’s advertisers’ ads based on competitors’ URLs or relevant keywords, and do so right on the original website. LoudMo is different from Zango in the following:

Their adware has the ability to deliver interstitial ads. So the end user is browsing a site and suddenly they are shown a page to another site in the same browser window. …the page is loaded in frames, so the URL in the address box remains the same for the site that was previously being viewed by the end user. Even though the browser is titled LoudMo and there is a link to “skip” the ad …this can be confusing for some end users as to where the ad is really coming from. This also has implications with regards to the http referrer information.

The software also delivers inline ads. …sometimes these links look very similar to the legitimate links on the targeted web site, again potentially causing confusion for the end user. [more here]

Per Kellie Stevens, DirectCPV is now marketing their services especially aggressively. Watch out for them coming through/on the social media too (in forms of applications suitable for Facebook, etc):

Both e-tailers and affiliates should be aware of LoudMo. The majority of affiliate networks (not to be confused with so-called “CPA networks”*) prohibit adware use, and justly so.

Read more in Kellie’s thread here.

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* The CEO of DirectCPV is also a VP at RevenueGateway CPA network