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Comment by onreact-com | Hacker News Reader

Does selling products on HN conform with the TOS?

It seems unlikely that the poster is the one selling this item. It seems more likely that the reason for posting this was to show that you can in fact now buy cell phone jammers for only a few dollars. This is quite interesting whether or not you actually want to buy one :)

While I'm not begrudging, it should be noted that DX links ending with ~r. and a number are affiliated to a particular user's account.

> Selling products?

If they're interesting products, I think that's cool. We're capitalists here:-) No spam, though, of course.

Affiliate links?

Why not, if it's an interesting product? I don't begrudge one of us making a bit of cash for showing us something cool. On the other hand, if someone's spamming, throw the book at them! It's pretty clear that 'frisco' is a user who participates in this site and is not a spammer, though.

Because once you start to allow affiliate spam you might as well open the floodgates. Do you have any idea how fragile the submit page is vs the number of would be spammers that you'd have to defend against if you let it through ?

I think it's one of those things were it's not that hard to figure out. If you or I post a link to something with a link in it, it's likely to be as part of something else. I occasionally post a book link, for instance, but it's not something I do often or regularly for the sake of making money. Real spammers are unlikely to really participate in the community enough to not be completely obvious spammers. One glance at frisco's page, for instance, tells you that he's not.

I just don't really see the problem.

Ok, what's your call on these then:

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ravindra1982

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=insomniamedia

From a low wage country it doesn't take much to get someone to spend a few minutes / day to 'participate', and then to drop the 'payload'.

First one is a gray area, second one is a spammer. This is why we have human moderators and the flag button.

Anyway, it's sort of a moot point, as it's not really possible to automate elimination of those sorts of links.

the first one only started including other domains after being called out as a spammer, the second one is a clear case to me as well.

There are plenty more these two are only a small sample.

Oh -- sorry about that! I found it through stumbleupon and didn't realize there was an affiliate link at the end. It won't let me change the URL now though.

No need to apologize even if you did do it yourself. I checked your previous submissions and it is obvious you are not spamming HN. There is no shame in linking to a interesting product using an affiliate program. You are technically advertising for them after all and deserve a payment.

I do wonder how much you earned the Stumbleupon user though. A quick google search on the affiliate suffix shows he links to a few other DX products on SU and elsewhere. Today I'm sure he saw a boost in profits.

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