Hijackware

Affiliate and Internet Advertising Networks often credit commissions and payment to the affiliate, or partner, who delivered the click-through just prior to a transaction - “paying on the last click”. It’s a good system, designed to reward the affiliate, or partner, that initiated the ‘buying or sign-up process’, or the ones providing the value-proposition needed to ‘close the deal’ with the customer. By subverting the system, hijackware can occasionally result in ‘hijacking’ credit for a transaction that was legitimatly delivered by a different affiliate or partner. More frequently, hijackware results in commission and payments being ‘earned’ from traffic that the advertiser received naturally, outside of any advertising channel… meaning, they are paying for something they would have gotten for free.

Hijackware is designed specifically to generate commissions and payouts that are fraudulent. The hijackware may generate a pop-under that initiates commission/payout tracking when it ‘recognizes’ that the user is at the website belonging to an affiliated advertiser. Or, it may be more sophisticated, and wait until the user is reviewing on online shopping-cart, or even at the check-out page. More complex versions will attempt to ‘launder’ their traffic through a series of redirection/misdirection schemes.

If you need help defending your online advertising program against Hijackware, please review our Services, or contact us.