[AffJus]

To see a list of all current merchants with a program at ebates, goto

http://www.ebates.com/all_stores.go

some of the lists in the forums are old and out of date. use this url to check for current merchants. (be patient, currently the list is very long and it takes some time to load.)

http://SearchToSale.com - Turns your search box into money.

[ecomcity]

The spooky part is some of the new additions to this list of merchants who support theftware. Wonder who gets the recruitment fees for signing up merchants for parasiteware programs??

WebMaster Mike

[cazzie]

In regards to this list, are all the merchants listed using the MMM? I think that is the most important thing to focus on, or am I wrong in my thinking?
Cazzie

[SSanf]

Thanks. I was just about to sign up with Oshmans. Who can I use for outdoor games that people would take camping? (large group of people camping together) CJ prefered until I see how much sales.

The Wolf Credo: Respect the elders. Teach the young. Cooperate with the pack. Play when you can. Hunt when you must. Rest in between. Share your affections. Voice your feelings. Leave your mark.

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

Cazzie,

You are correct. Not all merchants on that list participate in the MMM app. Which may be a good thing to point out to merchants when discussing the ebates issue with them. That they can participate with ebates, but stipulate that they be excluded from the MMM app. This may be more palatable to some merchants who receive quite a bit of sales from ebates.

Keep Your Hands Off My Cookies

[SSanf]

So, how would I know if Oshmans participates in the MMM app.

Sorry if it is a dumb question. I am not about to instal that junk on my computer to find out.

The Wolf Credo: Respect the elders. Teach the young. Cooperate with the pack. Play when you can. Hunt when you must. Rest in between. Share your affections. Voice your feelings. Leave your mark.

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

SSanf,

I just went to Oshman's direclty and then through a couple of different affiliate links. Ebates came up 1 out of the 4 times with the direct type in. It didn't come up at all from one set of affiliate links which landed on various category pages. It did pop up consistenly on another group of affiliate links which were to specific promotions and specials.

I have a "pre-fix" version of ebates.

Keep Your Hands Off My Cookies

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

To any out there who want to know about a particular merchant who do not have ebate on their computer for any variety of reasons, just ask. I'm sure one of the several people who do have it will be happy to check and let you know.

Keep Your Hands Off My Cookies

[ecomcity]

I thought that only the merchant's marked "coupon only" have opted out of the Moe Money feature. If eBates offered the other 480 merchants the option to not be a Moe Money participant then NONE would opt-in for this theftware section as it would eliminate them getting double dipped.

Any merchant here on the list care to explain? Seems to me the AM's seeking out Dupers like eBates, Gator and iWon are blinded by greed. They hope the double dipping of normally non-commissionable links to their sites is made up for by stealing customers from their competitors by these BHO apps.

WebMaster Mike

[webmarm]

Wow, I've never had so many merchants on a scumware list! WAaaaaaaay too many of my merchants on that eBates list.

I think the "coupons only" may be a clue as to whether they are with MMM. Tiger has that label. So does Amazon.

- - - - -
42. Yup, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

[Janiss]

>>To any out there who want to know about a particular merchant who do not have ebate on their computer for any variety of reasons, just ask. I'm sure one of the several people who do have it will be happy to check and let you know.<<

I have a Mac and can't do the eBates thing, so for my edification, and for others' too, could somebody check on the following? (I'm assuming that those who have "coupon only" by their names aren't MMM, so I've skipped any of those):

Alibris (http://www.alibris.com/)
Altrec.com (http://www.alrec.com/)
GAIAM.com (http://www.gaiam.com/retail/default.asp)
Catherines.com (http://catherines.charmingshoppes.com/home.asp)
Cloudwalkers (https://www.cloudwalkers.com/)
Finishline.com (http://www.finishline.com/store/)
H&R Block (http://www.hrblock.com/)
Illuminations (http://www.illuminations.com/)
Jessica London (http://www.jessicalondon.com/)
Just My Size (http://www.justmysize.com/)
Mothernature.com (http://mothernature.com/)
Reebok Store (http://store.reebok.com/)
REI (http://rei.com/)
Road Runner Sports (http://www.roadrunnersports.com/)
Spawish.com (http://spawish.com/)
Staples (http://staples.com/)
Ulla Popken (http://www.ullapopken.com/)

I'm not affiliated with all these merchants - some I've considered using. Some I am affiliated with, some I promote, some I don't. Significantly, I own stock in a couple of the above companies, and depending on what I hear from you guys, their investor relations department may hear from me. /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
TIA!

J

[This message was edited by BLFH on November 30, 2002 at 05:03 PM.]

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

Janiss,

All of the links you provided above redirected to ebates except Catherines.com. Just a point of clarification, I'm using a pre Nov 7th version of ebates with IE 6.0 on a PC. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Above that, I'm not giving out any further specifics of my computer's configuration. Also, these of course were all direct URL's to the merchant and not affiliate URL's.

Also, one of the links above is incorrect. I'm about to edit it for you. The only thing changed in the post will be to fix the URL.

Keep Your Hands Off My Cookies

[cazzie]

I have a question. Even though your links are rediected will the intial click through still show in your CJ reports?
Cazzie

[cazzie]

Viewing that list is very discouraging. Very few merchants that are not using MMM. I also saw some merchants still listed that have said they dropped ebates. I wonder how long it takes ebates to update the list?
Cazzie

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

Cazzie,

What I'm seeing when I click on one of my affiliate links that are associated with ebates (the chain of events) is that first the URL with my affiliate tracking is displayed in the browser, then a redirect to ebates tracking. Sometimes the ebate redirect is directly to the merchant's site with their tracking info. Sometimes it looks like it goes through a url that is ebates and then on to the merchant's site.

Now if my affiliate coded url made it to the networks server's for tracking then I would expect the click to show.

Keep Your Hands Off My Cookies

[Janiss]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> All of the links you provided above redirected to ebates except Catherines.com. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting - although I have not been with Catherines for very long they seem to convert exceptionally well for me. Perhaps this gives me an indication of what my site would be doing without eBates' linking switcheroos.

J

[cazzie]

What network is Catherines on?
cazzie

[AffJus]

I too wish I knew which ones are associated with MMM. I'm going to try and find out...

http://SearchToSale.com - Turns your search box into money.

[SSanf]

BLFH
Thanks for checking

The Wolf Credo: Respect the elders. Teach the young. Cooperate with the pack. Play when you can. Hunt when you must. Rest in between. Share your affections. Voice your feelings. Leave your mark.

[Janiss]

Catherines is a Performics merchant.

J

[akapattya]

Hey all...merchant perspective here..
to answer this:
"I think the "coupons only" may be a clue as to whether they are with MMM. Tiger has that label. So does Amazon."

I think 99% of all merchants have no clue about the MMM. As a NOW former ebates merchant, we were never approached with "hey, we have this download that allows a pop up to come up on your site and redirect..blah blah" That never happened..so I am sure most merchants who are participating really have no clue about it. The few who set up side deals and learned more and went to coupon only status..are probably the only ones who know.
I don't like seeing comments here about the "sinister merchants seeking out duper affiliates because of our greed" type messages..you guys really have to understand that majority of us are not aware of these programs. The ones that are and do not care to change anything..well..then they are truly the greedy ones.

I think you all need to contact your merchants still using ebates et al and ask them how much they REALLY know about the downloads..probably not much in my opinion.

The popup never worked for our site..not because we asked ebates to disable it for us..they even had no idea why it did not work for our site when we were participating..but again we were not asked to opt in or opt out of it in the first place.

Patty Altaffer
Affiliate Manager
AKA Gourmet(www.akagourmet.com)
patty@akagourmet.com

[AffJus]

Thanks much akagourmet.com!

Could I ask you a favor? Could you start a topic here, with your impression of the ebates/mmm topic from the merchants perspective, so that I can then include the url link to it in my emails to my merchants? So that they can read what another merchant has to say, so that they don't think I'm just another whining affiliate? I think it'd really help us all.

Thanks so much!

http://SearchToSale.com - Turns your search box into money.

[Abusaki]

How about cooking.com?
I would appreciate it if anyone could give me more information if their links are redirected as well.
For the whole of November we had 2,195 click throughs and only 4 sales.
I sent them an email and have not received any explanation for that.

[webmarm]

Just clicked on another affiliate's cooking.com link.

It redirected, overwrote, and MMM popped up (and my cookie helper fellow to assure me that even without the frame I'll be getting credit for stealing from my fellow affiliate).

- - - - -
42. Yup, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

[ShawnSchwegman]

I posted this elsewhere, but I think it applies here:

I have spoken to Paul (eBates), and a few people at TopMoxie. They have updated their software to not issue pop-ups when traffic is generated from an affiliate website. However, the update process takes a few days, and they have not allowed all clients to update yet. From a technical standpoint, anytime you update software you typically want to start small and slowly rollout the fix to your entire install base in order to minimize potential technical problems. They will be increasing the amount of clients they update hopefully this afternoon. It’s also important to note that after the update is applied to a client PC, it takes a minimum of 2 reboots to be completely updated. They believe that the large majority of clients will be completely updated within 1 week.

Last night, I formatted a PC and did a fresh install of Windows. After that, I went to eBates and downloaded the Moe Money Maker. I have not seen any pop-ups when traffic was generated from an Affiliate’s website and I tested it for about a half-hour. This was a fresh, clean installation.

If you are running similar tests with an existing install of MMM, I’m not sure what results you will get because I’m not sure your software will have been updated to the latest version. If you have an existing install, based on what I have been told by TopMoxie, your software should be upgraded over the course of the next few days. Additionally, it will take at least 2 reboots after the upgrade in order for the MMM software to be “fully” upgraded to the new version.

So, with that said, I believe 2 things should happen:
1) It would be helpful if other people could wipe and reload a PC, and then install the newest version of MMM to validate my test results. Please feel free to contact me if you see different results.
2) Wait a few days for current installs of MMM to fully upgrade, boot your PC a few times, and retest. It really doesn’t make sense to test this right now because you might not know if the software has been updated. We should keep a close eye on this over the course of the next week.

Additionally, I’d like to add that Overstock.com is against “ParasiteWare” contrary to popular belief. I have always worked hard to help develop an Industry Standard that would stop “ParasiteWare” for all affiliates, and I will continue to do so. Some people believe that we are a “ParasiteWare” supporter. This could not be further from the truth. The goal has always been to stop intrusive behavior and diversion of commissions.

We may not always agree on the best course of action to accomplish this goal, but we do have the same goal. I know that things may not happen as fast as everyone would like, but the industry is changing for the better, and you all have helped to make a difference. All I ask is that you continue to help. Help me, help you. After reading all of this, please feel free to send me any and all data that you feel is relevant. My contact information is below.

Thank you,

Shawn Schwegman
Overstock.com
801-947-3119
shawn@overstock.com