A month and a half of class
So, you remember when I mentioned how LJ installed some third-party code to rummage through all the links you include in your posts, and stick affiliate links on them to earn cash? But the coders were horribly amateur and didn't know how to filter URLs, so they broke a bunch of links, overwrote people's own affiliate IDs, and generally made a dog's breakfast of things? How LJ very quietly deactivated the whole thing and removed in in the next code push?
Well, it's been a while, so it's back, with nary a mention in the last lj_releases post. Apparently, the company has now hired someone who actually knows how to parse URLs, and moved more code to their own site so you can't tell what all links are affected. So, your pages are now scripted to send URL information to this company so they can check it and mess about with your links if necessary. Every time anyone viewing your post mouses over a link. Yay.
The outdated opt-out mentioned in the previous post still applies, if you haven't used it yet.
Now, on the one hand, I understand wanting to monetize those links. I can see where more revenue is good, and if there's a way not to add adverts to get it, well, there's something to that. But the method is rather insecure, and the fact that there's code on the site altering user content with no announcement at all is shady. I mean, I can accept that they're never going to mention things like this in news. But you'd think it would go in lj_releases. Hiding it so that only a subset of users notice? Shady. Shady shady.
I also don't know how I'd take this, were I an affiliate-program-sponsoring site. The whole idea of affiliation was a sort of internet "product placement", because companies know that a link in the text of an article or a blog was much better for them than an ad surfers would most likely tune out or block. The idea was to incentivize people to link to things their readers would buy, kick back a bit if it were successful. Obviously, all these links aren't being created by LJ, and it's not the strength of LJ's brand driving people to buy things from the links. So, were I another company... why the hell would I pay LJ obscene amounts of money just because they hired some company to add text to all the outbound URLs on the site?
On a related note, Dreamwidth handles cross-posting and can apparently allow you to read LJ posts on your DW friendslist. I've been squatting an account there, have invites piled, most likely, if anyone else is interested. I don't think this is the final straw for me, since I can opt out (admittedly, through a byzantine process that probably only works because it was overlooked), and block the company involved... but things do seem to keep piling up.
So, mainly out of curiosity at this stage, who would shift to Dreamwidth? Or at least go there to comment, if I happened to leave, and just crossposted the content here?
Well, it's been a while, so it's back, with nary a mention in the last lj_releases post. Apparently, the company has now hired someone who actually knows how to parse URLs, and moved more code to their own site so you can't tell what all links are affected. So, your pages are now scripted to send URL information to this company so they can check it and mess about with your links if necessary. Every time anyone viewing your post mouses over a link. Yay.
The outdated opt-out mentioned in the previous post still applies, if you haven't used it yet.
Now, on the one hand, I understand wanting to monetize those links. I can see where more revenue is good, and if there's a way not to add adverts to get it, well, there's something to that. But the method is rather insecure, and the fact that there's code on the site altering user content with no announcement at all is shady. I mean, I can accept that they're never going to mention things like this in news. But you'd think it would go in lj_releases. Hiding it so that only a subset of users notice? Shady. Shady shady.
I also don't know how I'd take this, were I an affiliate-program-sponsoring site. The whole idea of affiliation was a sort of internet "product placement", because companies know that a link in the text of an article or a blog was much better for them than an ad surfers would most likely tune out or block. The idea was to incentivize people to link to things their readers would buy, kick back a bit if it were successful. Obviously, all these links aren't being created by LJ, and it's not the strength of LJ's brand driving people to buy things from the links. So, were I another company... why the hell would I pay LJ obscene amounts of money just because they hired some company to add text to all the outbound URLs on the site?
On a related note, Dreamwidth handles cross-posting and can apparently allow you to read LJ posts on your DW friendslist. I've been squatting an account there, have invites piled, most likely, if anyone else is interested. I don't think this is the final straw for me, since I can opt out (admittedly, through a byzantine process that probably only works because it was overlooked), and block the company involved... but things do seem to keep piling up.
So, mainly out of curiosity at this stage, who would shift to Dreamwidth? Or at least go there to comment, if I happened to leave, and just crossposted the content here?