APG-L Archives

Archiver > APG > 1999-09 > 0936935859


From: "mavrogeorge" <>
Subject: RE: Me too!
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 20:57:39 -0700


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jean R. Legried [mailto:]
> They wanted a percentage of the research commissions I received
> from their site. I'll admit that I don't know much about the workings of
> the Internet, but I don't know how it can be determined that I received
> work via their site. I'd be grateful if someone could explain this to me.
> BTW I trashed their e-mail :-)

When you click on a link on a web site to go somewhere else, the new
location receives information about where you came from. Then if you order
some product or service you found at the new site, it isn't difficult to
record where the referral came from.

The way it would work is that they would physically house your website. When
I found the link to you on their website and clicked on it your website
would receive information sort of like "Hi, this is Brian and he found his
way to you via the abc website.". A program on your website would then track
what I did and if I ordered services from you it would record, "Brian, who
came here from the abc website, has ordered $250 worth of services."

This is the way Amazon.com and Ancestry.com work. Suppose on your web site
you had a link to Amazon.com and their book searches. When I visited Jean's
website and used that link to Amazon to search for and purchase a book, the
computer at Amazon would record "Brian bought a $32 book from us and he came
from Jean's site. We need to send Jean her commission."

You may think that when you surf the web you are anonymously going from site
to site but you truly aren't. Lots of information is being passed along
about you and what you have done.

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