University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Stuffing, Sniffing, Squatting, and Stalking: Sham Activities in Affiliate Marketing

Amarasekara, Bede; Mathrani, Anuradha; Scogings, Chris

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/109266

Description

Title
Stuffing, Sniffing, Squatting, and Stalking: Sham Activities in Affiliate Marketing
Author(s)
  • Amarasekara, Bede
  • Mathrani, Anuradha
  • Scogings, Chris
Issue Date
2020
Keyword(s)
  • affiliate marketing
  • online competencies
  • technological cooperation
Abstract
Businesses engage in technology partnerships to leverage web-based competencies and create competitive advantage. Affiliate marketing (AM) is a business model that enables technological cooperation between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and affiliates (influential partners who have reach of the intended consumer market). SMEs capitalize on affiliates' consumer reach to achieve global visibility and conduct online trading activities. Based upon mutually agreed commissions, SMEs advertise their goods to consumer communities provided by affiliates. However, AM can be subjected to sham activities that could skew commissions resulting from online sales transactions to bring financial gain to undeserving rogue parties. Using a cross-domain simulation platform of a complete AM network, this study reveals four fraudulent information-seeking behaviors—stuffing, sniffing, squatting, and stalking—that could affect SMEs. These findings will support enterprises in making informed decisions when implementing new AM strategies or in reinvestigating the robustness of existing AM strategies. We further propose some managerial and technical avenues to assist enterprises in safeguarding themselves from activities that could incur considerable losses to their profit margins. The study has further implications for practitioners in establishing a foundation for technology partnerships and sharing of online competencies with partnering firms.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Illinois School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Series/Report Name or Number
Library Trends 68 (4). Spring 2020
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109266
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2020.0016
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2020 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 68 (4) Spring 2020: Censorship and Information Behavior in the Age of Big Data PRIMARY
Library Trends 68 (4) Spring 2020: Censorship and Information Behavior in the Age of Big Data. Edited by Paul A. Watters.