LJ is now attempting to skim affliliate income from its users.

[reddragdiva]

LiveJournal has outdone its own previous fuckery — it's now rewriting outgoing links to steal users' affiliate income for a huge list of sites — Amazon, eBay, etc.

You can switch this off for your own account, at least, per this post. It involves messing around with the admin console.

I can't see a way to explain this one as somehow accidental, an error in judgement or other plausibly innocent rationale. They've gone to some effort to do it in such a way (JavaScript fuckery) that people won't spot what's happening unless they're geeks and look really closely. It's as if they know this violates most affiliate schemes' terms of service.

I now post to DreamWidth, with a crosspost to LJ. I strongly recommend jumping ship. A paid account is US$3, or dw_codesharing has lotsa codes going spare. damned_colonial has a pile too. Comment here if you need one.

Update: "Whoops, we're sorry we got caught." It is still switched on as I write this, though. Update 2: It appears to have stopped. Update 3: Amazon are Not Amused.

Comments

[denny]

I have 10 invite codes, and can probably get more if there's a group of people that would like to move here all at once.

[rialian]

===Followed from a link on LJ...thanks for the links and info!

[(Anonymous)]

Come to think about it, I'd like one myself. (LJ txtriffidranch)

[jld]

The official explanation seems to be that LJ took a piece of third-party JavaScript code which they manifestly did not understand and included it in every single LJ page, giving it the authority of livejournal.com.

I do not perceive any way in which this is good.

Also… even if I wanted to believe LJ was flat-out lying and knew exactly what they were doing, the “features” like turning a link to glutenfreebay.com into an eBay popup argue against it. On top of that, even if they didn't mean to steal from people using affiliate links, they basically admit to having intended to rake in money from non-affiliate links, without permission or even announcing the change.

So, the parts that are established as malice are *BAD*, the parts that are clearly incompetence are *BAD*, and the parts that aren't so clear are *BAD* in either case.

DW Code?

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, I have a permanent account here but no longer have any money (I purchased it the second time they did one of the sales a long, long, long time ago). A code sent to me would be fantastic : diehackdie at gmail dot com(e)

Thanks and I'm really thankful for the heads up on this mistreatment of our trust.

[sci_starborne]

I must admit, the main reason I still primarily use LJ is I'm having a lot of trouble adjusting the differences in DW's layout. Some replies seem to vanish and I can't view more than one page of folk on my "reading" list.
Point me to the "previous entries" link on the reading list, and I'll happily move across.

[reddragdiva]

My reading page has a link marked "Previous 20" at the bottom ... looking at your reading page, the theme doesn't appear to have a link to previous posts! o_0 I suggest you (a) report it as a bug (b) try a different theme.

[sci_starborne]

Ah, see I didn't know it was a bug! I've tried a couple of different themes and there's still no link. Will report it.

[reddragdiva]

See my reading page, link at bottom. I'm just using the standard "Transmogrified Basic" theme.

[trixieleitz]

Apparently Amazon are Not Amused.

[reddragdiva]

:-D

[sci_starborne]

Apparently the reading page only contains entries from the last 2 weeks. My reading list has less than 20 entries in the past 2 weeks. :/

[vayshti.livejournal.com]

Ripped shamelessly from mecurtin

Code is supposedly being pulled. In comments to this post, LJ staffer marta reports:
As far as I am aware, we knew it would make us an affiliate. It wasn't supposed to override anyone's affiliate links ( if it did, we'd have a way to make it not do that, however, I don't know more than that).

Additionally, it wasn't supposed to change anyone's links or get caught up on loading (there were reports of a script not responding, and I believe this was one) ... we're not going to continue to use this service.

[reddragdiva]

"Whoops, we got busted."

[reddragdiva]

Also, lots of people notified Amazon that LJ were doing this.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

According to comments in that post, it was intended to add affiliate info to non-affiliate links (per marta, who is generally reliable). This is still sleazy, as it's skimming affiliate money they're not really, IMO, entitled to, but it is less sleazy than deliberately redirecting links.

[vayshti.livejournal.com]

It definitely does read like either a 'whoops we got busted' or a 'we're so freaking incompetent'.

The conversation in the link is worth looking at in detail.

It'll be interesting to see how they deal with compensation for lost revenue...

[reddragdiva]

Their taste in partners also appears exquisite.

I'm still reading her comments and only seeing "Whoops, we're sorry we got caught."

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how I'm reading it too.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It's the early part of the year; LJ always make a bollocks of something about now.

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

Ads? On the intarwebs? Crazy talk. I don't see any! :)

[reddragdiva]

Yes. I note that it's STILL SWITCHED ON after the "sorry."

[reddragdiva]

This is a "malignant fuckery," which is a rather different beast.

[aidan-skinner.livejournal.com]

Eh, cock up of another attempt to get some revenue from the thing I reckon.

Don't really see it as anything like as big a deal as some prior cockups, or facebooks entire privacy policy.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I wasn't even going to follow the links (what do I care about affiliates and stuff), but some of the links raised privacy concerns, and that was enough for me to disable it anyway.

But what does: set opt_exclude_stats 1 actually mean?
I'm assuming it stops the third-part redirect?

[sharplittlteeth.livejournal.com]

Code me, please?

I want to buy an account, but not until they get their credit card processing back on line.

[sciamachy.livejournal.com]

Can anyone get me a DeadJournal invite?

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Aha. THAT would explain why I've been unable to follow links from, or even within, LJ on my phone browser for the past week or so.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

or facebooks entire privacy policy

Agreed. I don't post anything really personal to Farcebook due to the privacy issue. At least I can do so to LJ.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

https://www.dreamwidth.org/create?from=pseudomonas&code=B62PVPSZSV9H9AAAAHGN

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

Much as I like the dreamwidth advocacy, isn't it quite hard to pay them money right now? or did they finally get that sorted?

[steer.livejournal.com]

It's actually switched off now as you can see from:

http://l-stat.livejournal.com/js/pagestats/dRev.js

I think it should have been something like this:

http://http.cdnlayer.com/drivingrevenue/dRev.js

Small storm big teacup.

[reddragdiva]

Yes, they're working on it. In the meantime. c0d3z are readily available.

[sharplittlteeth.livejournal.com]

Merci beaucoup.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

I've already got a paid account. Although I'm worrying how I'll be able to pay next time round.