Affiliate Programs - The Root of All Internet Evil?

An affiliate program lets companies outsource promoting their products to third-parties who are paid a certain portion of each sale. All too often, suppliers of merchandise use affiliate systems to pay others to do things of questionable legality; letting them wash their hands of wrong doing, but keeping the profits.

Spam email is probably the best example of this on the internet. For instance, when you get an email advertising a low mortgage rate, it usually contains a URL pointing to a website with a form on it. Needless to say, that form isn't actually hosted by the bank's web server. It most likely submits its data to an additional third-party, who is paying the spammer for potential mortgage leads. That party then actually sells the contact information to the bank, and may be paid a portion of business actually landed, or by some other metric.

The bank itself can claim to be entirely innocent. It's even possible they were aware their mortgage leads were being generated by spam emails. Although, I'm still trying to figure out who would entrust their mortgage to someone who can't spell the word.

Adware manufacturers use similar schemes. Since they are paid by advertisers to force pop-ups and other ads on people; the more victims who have installed their software, the better. Adware companies partner up with software authors, who they pay on a per-installation basis. Most commonly the software is in the guise of being "free," or trial-ware (SpamButcher is 100% adware and spyware free). Some adware authors have stooped even lower by using "zombies" or "botnets" to distribute their wares via spam email or even attacks on known security exploits.

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