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Comment by caiob | Hacker News Reader

Affiliate commissions generate a lot of fake reviews. I think this is a good move by Apple; although I believe they should simply shut down the entire program.

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Ok, I've sat and thought about it for a bit but have yet to figure it out. How would this cause fake reviews in the specific case of the App Store?

Write a fake or cookie cutter review about popular app X, link to app X in your article and then collect commissions on people who buy it through the link.

Ah I see. I was considering reviews only in the context of a purchaser on the App Store writing a review on the App Store.

If I give a good review you're more likely to click my affiliate link.

True, but on the flipside, if revenue is cut, to make up revenue, many sites will probably only write about big apps/games and make them good reviews, or do 3x the reviews again biased to be good.

As someone who earns some revenue from affiliate marketing, I doubt this. It's already hard enough to compete with others for a 7% cut. For 2.5%, it's probably a better investment of time for others to find a different source of revenue entirely.

fake reviews on the affiliate site: more unique affiliate site links to more apps, more revenue

fake reviews on the app store: increase app profile and visibility, secondary feeder to your affiliate site via organic; Maybe affiliate site uses app store category top 20 lists to generate its links?

Cutting affiliate revenues by 2/3 without warning hurts honest players more than it hurts scammers, who will just move on to the next scam. Also for anyone who has invested time and effort in developing this as a legit business activity it's really horrible. I don't think companies should be able to unilaterally alter contractual relationships this way, it's unconscionable.

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