Merchant Affiliates and Stealware

"Stealware" is the term used to describe programs that steal commissions away from your site and trick your affiliate merchant into paying someone else for a lead or sale that came from your web site.

Merchant account affiliate programs often use cookies to track which site led a visitor to their site. However, stealware programs overlay your cookies with their cookies. Stealware can come piggybacked onto free software programs that users download. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about stealware other than encourage your merchant account affiliate programs to steer clear of companies that that dabble in such thievery.