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

[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.

[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.