Continuing my theme of exciting research with depressing conclusions: we analyzed 500k YouTube videos & 2 million Pinterest pins, finding that 90% of affiliate marketing is not disclosed to users, in violation of FTC guidelines and other regulations. https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2018/03/26/is-affiliate-marketing-disclosed-to-consumers-on-social-media/ …
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The paper is here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.08488.pdf ….
@aruneshmathur is the lead author and@ineffablicious is a coauthor. It will be presented at the Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SPW2018/ConPro/ …1 reply 24 retweets 44 likesShow this thread -
Of course, even when disclosures are technically present, do readers/viewers notice the disclosure and understand that the content creator is getting a kickback? We’re working on quantifying that now, as well as understanding why content creators don't disclose.
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In doing this research we created a comprehensive list of affiliate marketing URL patterns covering 33 companies, which didn't exist before. Please add to it! Affiliate marketing involves creepy tracking, so browser privacy tools might find this useful.https://github.com/aruneshmathur/affiliate-marketing-disclosures/blob/master/affiliate.txt …
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Along with affiliate marketing, there are other types of increasingly common online content such as "native advertising" (ads pretending to be news articles) where financial conflicts are not disclosed to users, at least not in a prominent way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising …
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How can we fix this? The idea I'm most excited about is for web browsers to automatically detect these types of sleazy content and display a prominent notice or warning, perhaps right up in the URL bar, or even label _links_ that lead you to ads disguised as content.
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Replying to @random_walker
Why is affiliate marketing “sleazy?” The product costs no more to the consumer. And the content producer has brought it to the attention of the consumer. The consumer only incurs a cost if they click and buy, which means they perceived value in the product and on the content.
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Replying to @bruce_lambert @random_walker
Nope. They incur systemic costs from other people making bad purchasing decisions due to misinformation.
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Especially in health and wellness field (one of the most popular targets) the misinformation crowds out important real information and spreads deadly beliefs like antivax.
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