www.auctionsieve.com

mike09 · Officially active! Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 3

AuctionSieve… great Ebay tool! When I finally thought ‘here is a great free tool!’ disappointment came over me soon enough, as it appears that this program has a relationship with spyware sites such as adfarm.mediaplex.com and qkarv.net. Maybe others as I did not investigate this any further… but fact is when I try to ‘view’ a searched item I am being redirected to the above sites first. If you don’t have an updated firewall you will not make a note of this, but if you do your firewall will block and show the path to the above listed links. I don’t want to criticize this great tool (lots of potential) but I wonder what is underneath this ‘free’ program. Any thoughts?

Mike

nev · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:48 am Post subject:

Hi Mike,

I'm part of the eBay affiliate program. It's how I can afford to give away the program for free.

Ebay run their affiliate program through a company called Commission Junction. And Commission Junction in turn have a number of servers they use - two of them being qksrv and adfarm.

Believe me - I hate spyware and malware with a passion. Before joining up I very carefully read through all the Terms & Conditions to make sure there wasn't anything dodgy going on.

Regarding how the affiliate program works. If you view an auction through AuctionSieve *and* then put a bid in, I get 10 cents. It doesn't come out of the bidder's price or seller's fees - it's just a cost for eBay in promoting their business. At this point in time I'm making about enough to buy a sandwich a day. Smile

You can find out more information about the affiliate program here :
http://affiliate.ebay.com/

I've gotta add this to the FAQ topic - I get asked it quite often.

Nev

mike09 · Officially active! Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 3

Nev,

I appreciate your honesty and your feedback on this issue. Like I mentioned previously this is a great piece of software. Too bad that implicates privacy issues. In my opinion with all the snipe programs on internet, I don’t think that a lot of users will use your program to bid on any Ebay items. Besides Ebay is already in violation of their own ‘Privacy Policy’ (see below). It will not take to long for Ebay to get out of the ‘Commission Junction’ deal. A lot of unhappy users out there having troubles accessing Ebay sites because of the spyware sites.
If this piece of software would have been clean, I will probably have interest in purchasing a copy. However you could keep this program free, with the search and view linked directly to the Ebay site and the bid section through the third party sites.
Honestly I don’t see a bright future the way it stands.

Some Ebay concerns from their own forums….Something to think about!

“It's verified now that the eBay toolbar is violating eBay's own Privacy Policy. According to eBays Privacy Policy, Appendix 2, stuff like IPs etc. is given to Advertisers only in a non-personal manner, to External Service Providers only with given permission (which is not asked for in the toolbar license agreement) or upon direct contact (which the user doesn't know anything about).

[During testing] The toolbar contacts both MediaPlex (adfarm.mediaplex.com) and DoubleClick (ad.doubleclick.net), using at least the first as a page relocator. That means this relocator page at MediaPlex receives the whole URL that the toolbar calls. It receives all search terms, and in the POST (formular) data of the HTML header it will also receive any formular data you enter or that is transmitted automatically.

The mediaplex relocator also contains some long number that could be a GUID [Editor: A GUID is a Globally Unique Identifier].

The least thing those two advertisers could monitor is the keywords you search for on ebay; MediaPlex is using their cookie for the toolbar, so they can track you very easy.

The worst thing that is - theoretically, not proven - possible would be much more access to your ebay account, including information about everything you bought or sold, for example”

martynp · AuctionSieve master Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 42

Hi Nev,

Both You & Mike make some valid points.

I personally have no problem with the privacy issues mentioned in AS. However, popularity for you program is growing daily as there really is nothing else out there to touch it right now.

Suggestion.....

Why not have a freeware version just as it is now AND a shareware version with the issues mentioned removed?

Just a thought

Martyn

nev · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 9:37 am Post subject:

I really don't want to start charging for it.
For a number of reasons - not all altruistic.
- I want as many people as possible to benefit from my work - free is the best price to achieve this
- piracy suddenly becomes an issue - sites with hacked versions - it's written in Java - it's incredibly easy to hack!
- I'd have to implement all the shareware/payment side of things
- but the major one for me is that I'd then be beholden to people

If people pay me and then I go away for 4 weeks overseas and eBay makes some changes which break my program - I'm not going to have happy customers! At least with it being free it's a case of you get what you pay for - I give you no guarantees that I might not just stop development on it tomorrow. Not that I'll do that - it's just the feeling of freedom that's important to me. "I don't have to do this. I *choose* to do this."

Nev

martynp · AuctionSieve master Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 42

Well said, that man!!

I agree and understand totally Nev. A very honest and honourable post!

(Just don't go anywhere or stop developing) :lol: :D

Regards,

Martyn

fit_nut2 · Active contributor Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 6

Hi, Nev. I wish I had known about this, cuz then I would have bid after finding the item. I'm curious, do you get paid if it's not a WINNING bid? Seems to me that whomever here finds your program useful could simply bid if they wished, even if they knew the bid had no chance of success. It'd be a win-win, since you get paid, and we get to continue using your program for free.

nev · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 5:21 pm Post subject:

Yes, I get paid even if the bid doesn't win.
(From eBay's perspective it's still worth it because you're boosting up the price of the item and they get a percentage of the increased sale price.)

But, er.... I'm not going to condone that kind of behaviour... Very Happy

Quite seriously, don't do it too much. One company, a couple of years ago, got busted because they were offering reward points in return for people bidding (strictly against the Ts&Cs) and people were just putting in lots of bids that had no hope of winning, in order to get the points.

Nev

mike09 · Officially active! Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 3

Nev,

People like your program, and I can see them supporting your work, and by all means, I could make all the bids you want to support you. So my solution is to have two versions of this program. It does not cost anybody a thing to make ‘your bids’. In return we can get a clean version. Just a thought….

Mike

ET · AuctionSieve regular Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 10

I'll try to bid through AuctionSieve, then, if I find an item through it and don't snipe it.

ET · AuctionSieve regular Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 10

If I get to a bid through AuctionSieve, put a watch on it because of this, and then bid through eBay, does anything go to you?

nev · Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:15 pm Post subject:

Gee, bit slack about answering this post - sorry.

I'm pretty sure I don't get anything if you use the ebay watchlist.
You have to view an item via AuctionSieve and then put a bid in.

That's how I've always understood their help documentation but I may be wrong.