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Maybe the Dirtiest Affiliate Marketer I've Ever Seen...

by discrat
13 replies
Hey guys,
I know this has been out for awhile.

But I find it very interesting still today.

Thought I would share it for many of the Newbies around here who do not know about it.

Really fascinating stuff.

Shawn Hogan is the Founder of Digital Point, one of the biggest make money forums in the Universe.

And he was sentenced to Federal Prison this past Summer for 10 years !! ( actually, from Records he only has to spend 5 months. )

Why ??

Over a period of 5 years or so ,Shawn made $28 million as an Ebay affiliate.


Shawn made this tremendous amount of money by stuffing cookies into every single person who visited any of his websites.

So if you or I had gone to Shawn's Site ,unbeknownst to us ,Shawn would automatically assign an Ebay Cookie onto our ID.

So when we left his Site and anytime down the road went and bought something at Ebay........well Shawn would get an Affiliate commission.

The implications were HUGE.

Shawn would get these astronomical Ebay Commission checks without sending them to Ebay through an Affiliate Link.

We are talking about hundreds and thousands of people going to Ebay , and Shawn got credit for them.

Mr. Hogan even had the gall to post on his blog that Ebay knew of this "covert" operation and actually encouraged him to keep on sending the Traffic to their website with his method.

Well, the FBI got whiff of this and in conjunction with Ebay set up a Sting and nailed Mr. Hogan and another accomplice.

It goes to show that taking Shortcuts cannot only cost you money., but it can also cost you your freedom.



-Robert Andrew


P.S. Here is Digital Point Thread right after Shawn was Sentenced. Kind of interesting in that he talked openly right there in the Forum.https://forums.digitalpoint.com/thre...-ouch.2718377/
#affiliate #dirtiest #marketer
  • Profile picture of the author kilgore
    While I certainly find what he did to be despicable, I find what he did to be 100 times less reprehensible than those people who sell phony get-rich-quick methods to people who are unemployed, sick or otherwise down on their luck. Stealing from a multi-million dollar company is wrong. Preying on the vulnerable and weak is downright evil.

    While the scale of his crime is horrendous, I don't think he's the dirtiest marketer by far.
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  • Profile picture of the author James McAllister
    I remember reading about this when it happened.

    Brings up another question - would you trade 10 years of your life away for 28 million dollars? I don't think I would, but there are a lot of people that would answer 'Yes' to that question.

    I guess this goes to show that those who fail to play by the rules inevitably get busted. Surprised eBay didn't catch on quicker, to be honest.
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    • Profile picture of the author JensSteyaert
      Originally Posted by James McAllister View Post

      I remember reading about this when it happened.

      Brings up another question - would you trade 10 years of your life away for 28 million dollars? I don't think I would, but there are a lot of people that would answer 'Yes' to that question.

      I guess this goes to show that those who fail to play by the rules inevitably get busted. Surprised eBay didn't catch on quicker, to be honest.
      That's a good question, but 10 years is a long time. I guess it depends on where you end up in prison. Some top criminal in my country was in prison 15 years and now teaches college...

      That being said, just build a real business and you dont have to worry about that
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Originally Posted by James McAllister View Post

      I remember reading about this when it happened.

      Brings up another question - would you trade 10 years of your life away for 28 million dollars? I don't think I would, but there are a lot of people that would answer 'Yes' to that question.

      I guess this goes to show that those who fail to play by the rules inevitably get busted. Surprised eBay didn't catch on quicker, to be honest.
      Yeah it was only 5 months time spent.

      He should be out already or getting close. I looked up current info. on it and there is nothing said about this
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    • Profile picture of the author Sweersz
      I never heard about this! That's crazy.
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    • Profile picture of the author onSubie
      Originally Posted by James McAllister View Post

      Brings up another question - would you trade 10 years of your life away for 28 million dollars? I don't think I would, but there are a lot of people that would answer 'Yes' to that question.
      There is an excellent documentary called "How to make money selling drugs" that is an examination of the drug war in the U.S.

      They interview one ex-drug dealer who says exactly that. He sold a lot of drugs and made a lot of money but ultimately got busted and spent 5-6 years in prison.

      But he had the cash waiting when he got out. He said:

      "You work hard, make a lot of money and put it away safe and it's waiting when you get out. What's 5 years for $200,000? I'd do five years for 200K"

      How to Make Money Selling Drugs (2012) - IMDb
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    • Profile picture of the author hometutor
      Originally Posted by James McAllister View Post

      I remember reading about this when it happened.

      Brings up another question - would you trade 10 years of your life away for 28 million dollars? I don't think I would, but there are a lot of people that would answer 'Yes' to that question.

      I guess this goes to show that those who fail to play by the rules inevitably get busted. Surprised eBay didn't catch on quicker, to be honest.
      In the US that money could be confiscated through the Rico Act originally designed or organized crime.

      Rick
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  • Profile picture of the author ej236
    Isn't placing cookies on someones computer called retargeting?
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
      This is the way the world used to work before it became against the law. If you had your speakers turned up when you were online, you could hear the sound of the cookies dropping into place in your browser. There even used to be software that was legal and perfectly acceptable to use that let you embed a link into another link so that when someone clicked on it you got a second cookie.

      These things worked on first in cookieing programs. It was just the way of the world for a long time. I don't know anything about this particular case or about Shawn Hogan, he obviously was doing something against the law, but for many years dropping secret cookies was not against the law. It was just how business was conducted online.
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    • Profile picture of the author onSubie
      Originally Posted by ej236 View Post

      Isn't placing cookies on someones computer called retargeting?
      There are different kinds of cookies. Many are placed automatically to save session information and do retargeting etc. It is the affiliate cookies that link an affiliate with a referral commission that are most problematic and illegal if dropped surreptitiously.

      The key is that a user must take an action to set the cookie. Cookie stuffing does it passively without the user's knowledge.

      The thing is, it usually does no harm at all to the user. But it sucks money from the business by increasing the affiliate payouts.

      You'll notice the article talked about all the money he "stole" from eBay. It made no mention of stealing money or harming the consumers who were cookied.
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  • Profile picture of the author CyberSail
    I don't advocate breaking the law or scamming anyone - but the dude only got 5 months prison time and walked away with Millions! Did he have to repay the money?
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by CyberSail View Post

      I don't advocate breaking the law or scamming anyone - but the dude only got 5 months prison time and walked away with Millions! Did he have to repay the money?
      eBay sued him for Three times the money he earned. The Civil case was separate and I'm not sure of the outcome. I bet he had to pay hefty restitution.

      Plus, imagine the toll on his personal life and health.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Thanks for this update, having been an eBay affiliate for many years and having spent time on DP in a previous life I took a keen interest in that case but lately hadn't kept up on the news. So, 5 months in the end, eh. He probably thought cookie-stuffing was basically "harmless" and wouldn't be that big a deal, but the practice basically defrauds the vendor of affiliate commissions they needn't have paid (since the buyer was going to their site anyway) and if it's to the tune of $28 million then someone is going to have a problem with that.

    Doesn't stop idiots trying it on forums like this one on a daily basis...
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    Who says you can't earn money as an eBay affiliate any more? My stats say otherwise

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