Not scumware, but another "tool" affecting affilia

[Drewbert]

Latest version of Norton Personal Firewall actually STRIPS "advertising" URL's out of the HTML on it's way to the client's browser.

So textlink URL's from certain hosts, or URL's having certain keywords in them just plain DISAPPEAR from your websites.

Plus ANY images whose size match common banner advert sizes (88x31 and 468x60 etc) are blocked.

See http://abw.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&...9&m=7116081324 for more info.

[Pam712]

Yes I already heard this is a big problem and its gonna affect us all badly

[Melaniea]

Just tossing an idea here, but if you fiddle with your banner formats to be just a few pixels off could solve the problem of having them dissapear from your page.

Or you can start making your sites in flash, in which case, I don't think Norton can do something about it. Although, I am talking 'through my hat' at this point. I know very little on this software.

I'll check out the links, I don't want my affiliates to suffer because of Norton.

[universal4]

What version of Norton has this effect?

Rick
Universal4

[WildBill]

I just went and read the thread posted above and what these people are talking about is

Yes, it does blank out all of the qksrv . net links. Images also if they're served from qksrv.

There isn't a big problem if the default settings are set.

[5starAffiliates]

I was just interviewed for a story about Norton blocking affiliate links in *Small Business Computing* Magazine. I told them much of the core of what I published in this article:
http://www.5staraffiliateprograms.co...s-revenue.html
Hopefully they will print what I wrote and it will help to make a difference in some small way.

Even though CJ and some other companies have developed work arounds it's still an issue so I was glad SBC wanted to write an article.

[universal4]

What is the most deplorable...is not that CJ and a few others have come up with workarounds, is the fact they HAD to come up with workarounds.

One of the reasons that Norton became so successful in the early days was that they embraced the Affiliate Model so well and sold tens of thousands of seats through many of their larger affiliates.

They then later decided to stick a knife in the backs of those that helped make them successful....claiming it's what the consumer wanted.

Rick
Universal4

[5starAffiliates]

I was interviewed back in October for an article for Internet.com about Norton blocking affiliate links and revenue. Forgot all about it and then just discovered that the article was indeed published this month.

"Affiliate Marketers: Blocking Software Is Killing Us"

"Besides searching and destroying viruses and erecting protective firewalls, Symantec's Norton Security 2005, McAfee Internet Security Suite 2005 and other PC security products block ads and cookies, which cause affiliate marketers to lose sales."

Here is the article with some good info - but what the guys in this biz say - totally SUCKS!:
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.co...le.php/3442701

[casinopowerguide]

I noticed exactly that when I was building my website. On a friends pc where Internet Security was installed all banners and links would go, but if you make a banner lets say 467x59 pixels instead of the usual 468x60 there wouldn't be a problem. The thing is that even images which are 125x100 are affected, and sometimes links dissapear completely.

If they want to have this feature it should be optional where people opt out of viewing advertising, but most people i fear would not know it's the firewall that's causing it and would think that any affiliate website is not displaying properly and probably never visit again.

Unfortunatley other than resizing all banners and making links go to a 'tracking url' ihavent found a workaround. Having said that i havenlt found the time to deal with this.