I’m constantly amazed, though you’d think at 41 I’d expect this crap already, by the depths to which some people will sink to ‘legitimately’ make a dollar. The latest example comes from the companies making the software that record companies hate the most: P2P file sharing companies like Morpheus, LimeWire, and BearShare. I’m not getting down on them for providing people a way to share files. Nor even for the copious advertising they send out or the spyware they install on computers along with their software (although this is the reason I have refused to install any of it).
No, today’s new levels of craptitude comes to us via the New York Times: New Software Quietly Diverts Sales Commissions. These shmendricks are setting up users’ computers so that whenever they shop at a site with an affiliate program (like Amazon’s), the commission paid goes to the file sharing company and not to the website that really referred the customer. Talk about your major sleazage!
The article quotes executives from several of the companies who claim that this was done inadvertantly (LimeWire) or was accepted by the user when the user clicked okay on the EULA (Morpheus). Merchants are trying to fight back and make sure the right company gets credited but the slimesters, like spam marketers, keep finding ways to ooze back in.
Gee, do you think the words I’ve used in this entry really express the depths of my contempt for these people?
BillSaysThis 