It’s not a secret. We do monetize social discovery, and it’s great | Hacker News Reader

It’s not a secret. We do monetize social discovery, and it’s great

blog.skimlinks.com

73 pointsCiaranR21 comments

It might be harmful if Pinterest was promoting content based on the most valuable affiliate links. As it stands though, accusing Pinterest of anything other than unusually high fiduciary responsibility for a social startup is daft.

It does beg the question of what happens when UGC content-discovery engines monetise their links. Google could add a Skimlinks-esque feature to natural search and make a fortune.

Affiliate fees are there to encourage links. If the links are entirely organic I wouldn't be wholly surprised if the affiliates themselves banned UGC fees - what's the point in paying for them if the links are there regardless?

This might be a question for Etsy to ask since it seems they are the biggest affiliate (anecdotal, are they?). Should they stop paying if these links to will be created anyway? The users, the ones who post content, are not incentivized to make the posts. Will Pinterest be less likely to promote Etsy links if they are cut off?

It's a good question but not for Etsy. We don't have a paid affiliate program.

To me, this is absolutely harmless. Skimlinks doesn't alter existing affiliate links, and it allows Pinterest to make money without resorting to obtrusive advertising. Win/win.

Of all the privacy issues to get riled up about these days, this is at the very bottom of the list, if on the list at all.

"While we fully encourage transparency and disclosure, at the very least because it is a nice thing to do, legally it is required only where the content creator is making endorsements that they financially profit from, like when"...

General advice on corporate communications: when you need to explain that something you are doing is technically legal, the message you are sending is that you don't have a sense of what is right, just what is legal.

The difference between being able to do something and assessing whether you should do it is the essence of maturity.

"legally it is required only where the content creator is making endorsements that they financially profit from"

To my knowledge, its Pintrest making the revenue right, not the content creator?

There has been no evidence that Pinterest will popularize and spread content with their own referral links any faster than links without their profit motive.

I've dealt with skimlinks for some time in the affiliate programs I manage. In general, they have been always forthright and above-board, so imho the brouhaha about this is overblown (at least in regards to them).

The ones who do deserve a bit of ire is Pinterest. While they do indeed have the right to do it without notifying you, I would say that the prudent thing to do would be to notify users. Doing it this way is more indicative of a "ask forgiveness instead of permission" philosophy, which can cause far more problems in the long run and calls their trustworthiness into question.

To be honest, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with monetizing links. Not to pidgeonhole this comment but I'd say its a damn sight better (not that I disagree with it either) than monetizing YOU as a person (read: Facebook).

If you walk into my home, its my domain, I can have whichever carpet, pictures or the worst potpourri I can find. If you don't like it, dont come back.

In the same breath, if your on a site who decide at their will, without notification, that they want to rewrite product links to be affiliate links then I don't see why that is a problem - you are in THEIR domain. Providing it is clearly labelled in their TOS/Privacy Policy (of course). Its their prerogative, they dont exist solely with the purpose of facilitating your leisure/browsing hours, they are there to make money and unfortunately for the haters, Affiliate's are a fantastic way to make money.

I could understand if by some black magic they managed to then follow you around, rewriting links on other sites (I know this isn't possible) then people would have a reason to be miffed, I just see this as them monetizing their asset in a smart, non-obtrusive way.

Best of luck to both biz's.

Does this become a question of conspicuous notice? That is, ads are kind of obvious, so you as a user understand the monetization model, and can even block it (to your metaphor, I can shield my gaze from your annoying pictures).

But the affiliate links are often hidden behind redirects, and I may now know that it is happening. In fact, I may prefer my own affiliate cookie (donating to charity for each purchase, whatever).

Might it come down to the site owner stating, not in a TOS/PrivPolicy linked way down in the footer, but in bright red letters on the home page or on each page, "Links include affiliate kickers: support the site and we'll keep finding fun stuff!"? Would notice be enough, or do we expect some type of additional consent?

Hmm, interesting suggestions. I don't think any of those could do any harm.

I do think if your the kind of person who wants to buy through your own kickback/charity type thing then you probably would do that before any purchase anyway.

But you know what, more than that - I just don't think its any of the users business. What impact does it have on them? The price they pay isn't in anyway effected and there is no single noticeable difference beyond the link url - I just don't see the problem beyond what I would call petty jealousy ("oh, I don't want them to get the money").

Take the big insurance players in the UK: gocompare, comparethemarket - they don't publicise the way they generate revenue and I don't think they should have to, either. They don't provide a comparison service for just the good of the community - its to make money.

Affiliates is going to be a big part of how the web is funded moving forwards IMO, people will have to get used to this.

In my opinion, turning a link without any affiliate code into an affiliate link seems perfectly acceptable: someone ought to benefit from it. By contrast, changing an existing affiliate link to use your own affiliate code seems slimy.

Skimlinks does not overwrite existing affiliate links. [1]

1. http://skimlinks.com/faqs#!/links-5

"someone ought to benefit from it. "

Why the link poster and not the destination shopping site?

It's quite possibly a violation of affiliate agreements as well, since it's not promoting the link, it's, well, skimming affiliate revenue.

Do I care that Pinterest is modifying pins? - No

Do I think they should disclose it to users? - Not any further than they already do by the TOS which pretty much say they have irrevocable and royalty-free license to do anything with the content you post.

If Pinterest really wanted to keep it a "secret", they could have gone through a couple steps to make the linked to url less obvious.

I've seen auto Amazon affiliate links on stack exchange sites and always thought it was a brilliant and non-bothersome way to monetize user generated content. With all this Pinterest/Skimlinks attention I realized that some people apparently don't think this is so brilliant, so I wondered what SE users thought about it and found this:

http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/26964/auto-inserting...

Looks like Jeff didn't "ask permission" beforehand but was explicit and open about the decision, and seemed to get a pretty positive reaction.

Much of the time, the trick is to avoid tripping the primate anti-cheating instincts. "We are doing X." "Oh, okay then."

Why would Amazon pay aggregators like Pinterest the same affiliate fees that they pay individuals/bloggers etc. for sharing? It seems as though they could discriminate in their Terms of Service for the affiliate programs, and that paying Pinterest doesn't directly motivate the site.

Pinterest is based in California, so I thought the law regarding affiliate taxation would apply. In fact, that's why Amazon dropped all affiliates in California a while ago.

How hard is it to do this yourself? Skimlinks is taking 25%, for this cut I'd think about implementing it myself...

This is much ado about nothing. Just fodder for bloggers. What Pinterest is doing is legal and isn't unethical at all. They're not promoting their affiliate links over anything else and Skimlinks does not alter user posted links that are affiliate links to start with.

Pinterest is providing a service to its users and those users can choose to use Pinterest or not. I would tell anyone upset about this "tough luck, go somewhere else". If this were Google or Facebook there may be some reason to be upset. But unlike Facebook or Google, Pinterest isn't a ubiquitous service that's been adopted and deeply integrated into people's lives and way they work. Right now is the time for Pinterest to do these sorts of things because the more popular they get the harder it becomes.

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