The Dirty Secret of Pinterest - Link Swapping

Pete Prestipino
by Pete Prestipino 08 Feb, 2012
The Dirty Secret of Pinterest - Link Swapping

Social media visual pin board Pinterest, which is now receiving over 10 million unique visitors a month, is apparently swapping out the links submitted by its users for links provided by affiliate network SkimLinks and doing so for profit as an affiliate, according to at least one industry source.

Joel Garcia of GTO Management ran some experiments and found that a pin linked to one of his merchant clients was swapped out for a SkimLinks affiliate link as he was passed from Pinterest to the source page of the pin.

 

Garcia did note that by using an affiliate link of his own, the affiliate link actually remained in tact (which is very good news for affiliate marketers). None of this, however, is good news for merchants.

The FTC rules on disclosure of affiliate links requires that any content creator that is endorsing or recommending something and receiving a financial benefit for doing so needs to disclose it.

 

But the law, of course, fails to address how platform providers like Pinterest should be treated in a case like this. Since Pinterest is not actually pushing people to buy something it may simply not apply. The best course of action, in my opinion, would simply be for Pinterest to provide the appropriate FTC disclaimer - and soon. 

 

More from Website Magazine on Pinterest: 

- Is Pinterest Doomed to Fail? 

 
Pete Prestipino
Pete Prestipino
Digital marketing executive with proven experience in all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO), performance-based advertising, consumer-generated/social media, email marketing, lead generation, Web design, usability, and analytics. - 20-year Internet marketing veteran, currently serving as the Digital Marketing Campaign Manager at Antenna Group (formerly Chicago Digital). - Former Editor-In-Chief of Website Magazine, and a regular speaker on Web technology digital marketing strategy - Author of several books on digital marketing Including Web 360: The Fundamentals of Web Success; Affiliate 360: The Fundamentals of Performance Marketing; Domains 360: The Fundamentals of Buying & Selling Domain Names, and SEO 360: The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization.