I was reading Jeremy Schoemaker’s blog entry on affiliate cookie killer, and found this research outlining affiliation network cookies detected by spyware detectors, written by Benjamin Enedelman in September 2006.

http://www.vinnylingham.com/specialreports/cookiedetections/...

Note that quite a few commonly used spyware detectors are listed here, including Ad-Aware, PC Tools Spyware Doctor (which has 25% off coupon by the way), ZoneAlarm, etc. Cookies from affiliation network might be detected and squashed without user notice.

What is the implication here?

MoneyBackCo provides moneyback through these affiliation networks, and the only way MBC gets money from these affiliation network to pay you, the users, is that your transaction is tracked by their browser cookies. If these cookies get squashed by spyware detectors, then affiliation network does not get the money from the merchants, and then MBC does not get the commission to give them back :(

Although none of the major Australian affiliation networks are listed there, this document is also 1 year old and lots of things can happen since then. It is not that those affiliation networks are source of spywares, but rather they too are often targeted by frauds. Those spyware detection programs are protecting THEM by filtering out uninitiated cookies from your browser. As a side effect, it might affect your MoneyBackCo tracking as well.

I wonder whether MBC or other users have first hand experience with this.