>...
>
Matt,
>> In each case, normal HTML gives a "referrer" page, so no affiliate
>> ID is needed.
>
>Paul.. None of those pages contain a link. The user would have to
>copy-paste or hand-type the url. That would defeat any referrer mechanism.
Also, whether cut&paste generates a referral all depends on your
browser and the setting used in some (e.g. Opera).
>
>Short of hiring the psychic friends network scotts does not have a way
>of tracking these to back to an affiliate. Period.
Nope; And if I can find them 6 months later in one chain's pages,
would you link to bet they were also referenced by Orchard Supply, Home
Depot, Lowes and dozens of other large chains and smaller businesses also.
*And* some of these chains may well have used links which resulted in a
referral from any browser. Beside, the referral is not needed to profit
from the reference - As you pointed out yourself, a store selling the
products gets its profit directly from the sale (they are still "affiliates",
check the definition is the UCC); So who cares (including Scotts) if they
have a method to track back to the referral (BTW. The receipt needed for
any rebate would give Scotts that data - no psychic needed).
>
>This is NOT an affiliate spam. Stop making things up that are clearly
>impossible.
>
>1) There is no tracker ID's, so it can't be tracked that way.
>2) the examples posted aren't even anchor-tagged so a user would have to
>re-enter it defeating any referrer mechansims.
See above.
>3) scotts itself sent out emails containing the link, so it's not an
>"affiliate exclusive" domain.
Rarely are "affiliate" domains exclusive - check some of your pill
or warez spam in your corpus. Leo Kuvayev spams his domains, so do other
people (usually using a "subdirectory" nowadays, not the old '?' method).
>
>Did you even LOOK at the pages you mentioned???
>
>
>> Also, while some of those links will *still* take you to a
>> "sweepstakes" page, the site winterizewithscotts.com has a simple page
>> which note that the "promotion" is over (!) and a link to the main "Scotts"
>> page. Clearly, this page had better not be the method for communicating
>> with registered users, unless Scotts has just dropped all "support".
>>
>It's not the primary page, it's an outdated promotion that scotts
>included in their regular lawn-care update mail. A mail I subscribe to.
>
>They don't mention it anymore.. but how'd it get there in the first
>place paul?
>
>> I suggest you look at the three pages:
>>
>> http://www.winterizewithscotts.com/
>> http://www.winterizewithscotts.com/index.tbapp?page=intro
>>
>> and read
>>
>> http://www.acohardware.com/673.html
>>
>> The last of which is indeed a hardware store chain that *does* sell
>> Scotts' fertilizers - exactly as you suggest is possible!
>>
>
>You're right.. Nobody has ever mentioned any product they sell on their
>web without being an affiliate spammer.
The "spamming" is unintentional, but if they link you directly to
either of the sweepstakes or rebate mail-in forms without first offering
a change to read the privacy policy, it will/did result in spam.
>
>> Then check the link:
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=acohardware&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=off&filter=0&sa=N&tab=wg
>>
>> 2 NANAS
>>
>> Which doesn't show acohardware.com spamming itself, but does show
>> it being forged by zombie Cialis spammers (looks like Yambo or maybe
>> Mankani),
>> which could easily lead someone to visit their page and sign up for the now
>> ended Scotts' promotion as I had posited.
>>
>Yeah, as a FROM ADDRESS!!! Not a URL!
You know what that is - So do I; 99% of Internet users haven't any
clue. Paste "acohardware.com" into a browser and you go to their web site.
Also aren't you willing to consider any "normal" customer of a hardware chain
that claims 69 stores might have gone to the site *on purpose*?
>
>That's not going to lead people to a specific obscure subpage on
>acohardware.com's website.
Weekly and monthy specials are on the first page - look at the timing
of the complaints and the special offers by Scotts and the forgery spam - all
in the same month - I don't believe it likely took more than one or two clicks
at that time. Right now, today, it takes two clicks to get to the Scotts
specific page at that site *and* there are no promotions or specials. Also,
notice that the monthly specials will print "web coupons" with a single click
over the item - It seems would have been easy to print the Scotts' rebate
or sweepstakes coupon without ever having any chance to see a copy of the
"privacy policy" contained on Scotts' own site.
>
>Paul. What's with the wild leaps of logic here?? Have you fallen
>completely off your rocker?
>
>What kind of crack-smoking half-assed theory is this shit?
>
Come on now; Both pages at:
http://forums.gottadeal.com/archive/index.php/t-13473.html
http://forums.gottadeal.com/archive/index.php/t-14640.html
contain URLs that lead directly to:
http://www.winterizewithscotts.com/index.tbapp?page=intro
That page has a *link* to a javascript redirected page:
http://www.winterizewithscotts.com/index.tbapp?page=rebate_page
which has no mention of any additional uses of the sender email; It
is a postal mail-in form, which requests an email address for the
purposes of a rebate offer - No links to the "privacy policy", though
the preceding page in the chain did have such a link.
Do you not believe that the type of person who peruses a site
like "forums.gottadeal.com" would fail to read the links at the bottom
(and off the screen) of an intermediate page while searching for a
rebate form?
I have no trouble believing that a person using the rebate would
never expect any "promotional" material to be sent, and further I'd bet
(standard - dollars to donuts) that if the rebate form is on the web site,
it was also on multi-form pads hanging near or above the products in hardware
and gardening stores across the country.
On the basis alone of the rebate page, I am sure that they did
indeed send unsolicited commercial email to people who neither expected
it or likely had any method (if the form was also in stores) of possibly
learning the companies privacy policy and thus knowing to expect it.
Personally, on such forms, I always write "NO EMAIL", but most
people are unlikely to. I have also signed contracts I am unwilling to
agree to as "Mickey Mouse" (and with few exceptions, give that name whenever
a cashier claims to need a name and address - Disneyland, CA - to complete
a cash transaction - e.g. Radio Shack).
I think I've found and given at least three completely separate
methods by which a consumer could unknowingly relinquish an email address
to the Scotts' site, and while each is unlikely to have been extremely common,
but each one is real and almost certainly did provide the company with
addresses of people who would later consider any email from Scotts to be spam.
At this point, I no longer believe that the winterizewithscotts
case is a FP, or even people not paying attention to a "privacy policy",
but is the case of a large and otherwise legitimate business who likely
crossed the line with data gathered and did indeed spam some people. In
simple words, I now believe that they properly earned their SURBL [ob] and
URIBL listings (though the URIBL one, if I am correct, should be probably be
lowered to grey). Filling out a rebate form is *not* consent for any later
acceptance of marketing materials or literature - and this rebate form says
nothing about any later marketing emails - just notification about the rebate
offer itself.
Paul Shupak
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
