I am not sure if you missed some of the back and forth between Larry Adams of Performics and Kris Jones of Pepperjam over the title of Larry Adam’s Blog Post: Publishers Spoke, We Listened. Apparently Kris felt the blog title was a little to similar t…

I assume you are making this insinuation ("…your network in such poor showing when compared to others") is based on Kellie's report from a year ago.

I have two things to say in response. First, Kellie's numbers for our network were overstated because in the past our servers redirected regardless of whether an affiliate had been previously deactivated. Many of the incidents she found were links owned by affiliates we had already caught and deactivated. We've discussed that issue directly with Kellie and have altered the behavior of our servers as a result so that links from deactivated publishers no longer redirect. In the past the server would stop dropping cookies and no commissions were earned, but the traffic still went through giving the impression to Kellie and other researchers/industry observers that these were live affiliates in our network. Despite this change in technology, we continue to find links from deactivated publishers in spyware apps months after deactivation, either because the affiliate did a long term buy they can't get out of or they are unaware of their deactivation.

Second, I'd welcome your help in rooting out bad guys. If you want to spend time looking for our tracking links in adware/spyware, be our guest. If you find anyone, send us the links (and logs and video if you have it) and we'll take care of the problem.

Larry

If you've got a great system and are doing well at policing things, we can both agree that some new scumbag can (and will) show up now and then and make your policing look bad. So an outsider like me, catching one occassional bad guy, is really no judge of things… but what if I could continually find them? Would you say then that your screening and policing is still effective?

I'd bet dollars to Donuts that you'd be blown away by the amount of time and money we invest in keeping our network clean. It’s not perfect, but I'm pretty confident we've got the one of the best systems around for keeping track and getting rid of the bad guys.

We haven't been very public about our methods or practices, but just because you don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist; nor for that matter does finding one of our tracking codes in one of your (or Kellie's or Ben's) tests. It's next to impossible to prevent every bad actor from entering a network. We are extremely vigilant in screening our new publishers and detecting the bad actors that slip through when they do crawl out of the woodwork. I assure you that once we find someone breaking the rules, we eliminate the problem quickly and quietly.

I'm reluctant to publicize our methods since I feel it will reduce their efficacy, but maybe the time has come…I'll keep you posted.

Larry

Communication is connecting people, using tools or information, where the single most important outcome is an exchange of information.

Transparency is knowing who and what entities are.

Transparency can enable better communications. It can also enable better recruiting. It can improve reporting segmentation, market analysis, trend spotting and management and many others things.

One of the biggest problems we have is hoards of crapola affiliates, with a criminal mindset (Calcanis again), who can hide with anonymity and continue to perpetuate the same nasty stuff on everyone else within a network, and certainly across networks. Making matters worse, Sub-affiliate ID networks can cross-publish "offers" bringing sets of anonymous, unindentifiable criminal mindset thugs into a cleaner space, and nobody knows it's happening – becuase there's no transparency.

If you go to the pepperjam home page, in the advertisers box, you'll see this:

"pepperjamNETWORK is built upon the foundation of empowering advertisers to build successful publisher relationships through exceptional communication technology and enhanced brand protection through full and unfettered publisher transparency."

This is a claim, and one with important basis. PJ knows all about the shenanigans going on in affiliate marketing, and they are marketing themselves based on exactly this point (among others).

This is no small matter. If all networks genuinely had "full and unfettered publisher transparency", brands would be protected because when a cheater go outed, everyone would know who and what they are.

Unfortunately, today, this is more a claim that a fact.

And it can only improve through discussion.

So let's discuss it a little more.

PJam, who exactly has this full and unfettered access to a publishers information? Do people like Kellie Stevens or Ben Edelman get access so they may more effectively scale the impact of their research for the benefit of your advertisers?

"Whatever… I’m just going to stop blogging about the networks."

Sam, I beg you to retract that. You've started a meaningful discussion, Kris and Larry know it. Unfortunately for us all, they also know that there are no other networks with real transparency, so they'd be opening themseleves up to lost affiliate info (as an example) if they were the only network that actually was transparent.

And Sam, the keynote garbage pile is a result of a lack of transparency by the networks, yet they claim it – you're so on topic and on point I could cry. So don't stop believin', hold on to that feeling.

And Larry, no pot shots at PJ on transparency or you'll motivate me to fire up my test lab and show you're in exactly the same boat here.

Truth of transparency is this – if a network finds cheaters and boots them, the need for transparency is largely gone. ShareASale protects their advertisers brands and boots bad guys and the advertiser never hears a peep – they don't care – do you need to know who and what every entity is when you're not be shot. kicked, scraped, shoved, punched and poked? No, people are mostly too busy for that. If it gets serious, a court order can provide all the transparency you'll ever need. Beyond that, we don't need it if policing is truly effective.

Jason C says it's a swamp. I agree and assert it's cause, beyond bad apple affiliates exiosting, is bad policing and almost no transparency by the networks.

When the G dust settles, no way they will allow the status quo – so I hope that G-DC-PFX is soon going to be forced to police much better and to be more transparent, all good for the industry.

Further, others may want to think about the police-or-be-transparent argument I make… as a site owner, I don't know the people whose ads show up in my AdSense block, buty I know G's watching them like hawks and surely knows who they are…

So Larry, Kris, either of you want to claim you're highly transparent or highly clean/policed or both?

Can a lowly little affiliate guy like me, trying to make enough money to feed his family, manage to find the time and techniques to find cheaters inside your network from here, at my little rinky dink desk, sitting completely outside your network, just observing reams of logs data and other complex road signs?

You both know I can, so let's not argue that point. To your credit, both of your groups are doing more than ever, but you're not even close to claiming "brands are protected"…

What are you doing to help convert the swamp into fertile, arable cropland?

"This industry can be so short-sighted and petty sometimes."

I'll wear that label if it helps everyone else move forward towards the truth.

Larry – we applied for the trademark "Affiliates Have Spoken. Pepperjam Listened." I'm sure you can switch out Pepperjam with Performics if you wish, but you would be a few days late and a dollar short.

Sam – I tend to agree with you that communication and transparency overlap quite a bit. You can not easily correct one without the other. As for you not blogging about networks, that would be very unfortunate since you are a leading voice in this industry.

Kris

Whatever… I'm just going to stop blogging about the networks.

This industry can be so short-sighted and petty sometimes.

Sam

Larry, I did go back and reread your blog, and you're right, you didn't claim this was meant to increase transparency – this feature does aid communication, but communication and transparency aren't the same things, as you (and Kris) know. It was Sam that lumped the t word in here, so I take back criticism aimed at you that was in error (you did not claim it increased transparency) – however, I now have transparency questions left on the table for you… but I've got the flu in a bad way, and I'm off to nap, day dreaming (and fever sweating) about you and Kris in Sumo suits…