PerrinAybara564
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You may have recently seen these links popping up and thought they were suspect. I did too, but they just redirect to a website. No big deal, right?
Unfortunately, it can be a kind of big deal.
When you click the link, it doesn't appear like it does anything. It's only if you navigate away from it that it begins to make sense.
The website suddenly redirects to Amazon which, while innocuous, is where the trouble lies.
See, Amazon has a program: affiliates. If you click an Amazon link with an affiliate code attached to it, the affiliated person receives a "kickback" of anything you may purchase while you're there. "So what?" You may ask.
(screenshot directly from Amazon's website)
These bots are redirecting users to Amazon then scalping money off of anything you buy from Amazon if you place anything in your cart within 24 hours and you check out within 90 days from that order. When I say "anything" I do mean "anything." This is how services like Honey work without charging you anything. Honey would "search" for coupons, change the affiliate code to theirs, even if it didn't find any coupons, then scalp money from Amazon stores and from other affiliated members.
"How does this affect me?"
Technically it doesn't. What the bot farms end goal is doesn't change anything on how you browse, they're (probably) not stealing any of your data, simply pocketing the loose change from every Amazon purchase made anytime someone clicks the link.
"So why are you so mad about this?"
Frankly, it's because it's spam and AI. Any time a link is posted, the bot farm upvotes it to the top of the list so it has the best visibility. The website itself is AI generated to make a feasible looking "blog post" posted by "admin-eq8qv" because that's a legit user ?, redirecting you to a book published in 2024 that I would bet a large sum of money is also AI-generated. The bot farm most likely bought a ton of burner accounts, probably from a password scam from years ago. As long as this venture is profitable, they'll stick around and keep spamming up anything we post; the more clicks they generate, the more ad revenue they make, and the more affiliate money they pilfer. True bottom feeders of our society.
I have been trying to figure out how the bot determines when a new comment should be made; my theory is it searches for a wikipedia link to be posted then delivers its blog post from there, but it could have many other methods of creation, and is probably not a manual process.
Cuddly pet tax - Dog is Veritas and cat is Cricket
ParallelParkingInABurka
Ugh, those fuckers again. There's a metric shit ton of them, mostly legit old & inactive accounts that have been hacked. I reported a ton of them back in May, but imgur never even bothered to block the most common URLs.
REOJackwagon
Jokes on them, I don't usually buy from amazon, but i think on your checkout screen it says if you are using a referral like that. I don't know if it still does that, but might help to read through you checkout screen completely, if you use amazon
REOJackwagon
Also if you put in your own affiliate code (we used to have one that benefited a pet charity, but I lost the code) it would replace anything the link put in
OregonComputerGuy
Paranoia strikes deep, into your mind it will creep...
PerrinAybara564
There's no paranoia here. The articles themselves are written the day the link gets posted - that's fishy in its own right, but then the redirect to Amazon has to have a purpose. it's all social engineering to make money with the least amount of investment necessary.
OregonComputerGuy
Ye!h, I have promised self to not enrich bezos anymore than he is but I have been accused of being a bot before, sometimes it may be an introvert sitting somewhere in the dark