Once again, CJ wrecks my plans

by Sapphire (June 5, 2006)

Remember that cool plan I had to just stick to the basics for a while, and wait patiently for the results to kick in? My theory was that it’s my preference for coming up with ideas that’s slowing me down on actually doing something. So I had this nicely outlined little task list, and I was all ready to go.

Then CJ decided to change their links to javascript, and the more I hear, the more I’m starting to worry. I have sites that are almost entirely CJ dependant, and it looks like being “CJ-dependant” is about to take on a whole new meaning:

Have you read this discussion on ABestWeb forum? Yes, it’s a conspiracy thread and on one’s claiming we can be 100% sure what CJ’s plans are leading to.

The basic idea is that CJ will use these new links to mine demographic information on our visitors for their parent company, ValueClick, then - since they can technically show whatever they want in our java links - they’ll serve up ads they think our visitors want to see, instead of the ads we placed there. It’s a bit of a stretch, but in theory, your bowling ball site could show ads for Viagra if that’s what your visitors cookies show an interest in. Or if there are no more bowling ball ads available from your merchants, maybe they’ll just pop in an ad from another merchant, which you won’t get credit for, and add something to their PSA that says, “When no ads from your merchants are available, we can stick in something with our own affiliate ID and hey - shoe money for us!” And they could abuse the information they’re collecting from our visitors. We could become nothing more than a farm for information ValueClick wants to sell.

These are the possibilities. But is CJ actually likely to do any of these things?

Well, check out ReveNews’ April 24 post on ValueClick unveiling a fabulous new behavior-based marketing product. From the Yahoo press release:

Users are first recognized, using non-invasive technology and without collecting personal information, as having visited an advertiser’s site and then “retargeted” with highly customized ads when they are recognized on any of the more than 13,500 sites within the ValueClick Media network.

Just what is going to wind up on our sites?

So now I’m putting my little task list to the side, and I’m searching high and wide for non-CJ links for my products. I guess I’ve got to get things built up so I can coast without them by the deadline, because it’s kind of looking like I’ll have to.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing
Subscribe to the feed or email updates