The following describes a long-standing and common implementation flaw in online affiliate programs allowing for fraud. For those unfamiliar affiliate programs, they provide a way for companies to allow 3rd parties/website owners to direct traffic to their site in exchange for a share of the profits of user purchases. Most view affiliate programs as a great way to monetize their traffic by strategically placing a few links on their sites.
Affiliate programs generally operate by associating a web visitor with a particular affiliate when the visitor has followed a custom link provided by the affiliate. This custom link will contain some sort of identifier that instructs the site how traffic was directed towards them. After visiting the link an association is made (typically via a cookie) with that users session on the destination site. This association might last for a few minutes to a month depending on the business requirement of the program.
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