Really interesting--thanks for sharing. I was in the affiliate space for a while and networked with quite a few affiliates in the Chicago area in particular. I met owners of several SEO link rings, and also someone who was doing it at large scale (200+ sites with decent PR) to drive links and traffic for insurance.

Another person I met was the guy who made a certain NSFW video involving a certain cup and a couple girls go viral who was 18 at the time, and drove an M3 that he paid for by cookie stuffing Amazon affiliate links using a fairly savvy approach to avoid detection, and using click hijacking attacks to make people automatically like his FB pages back when that was popular.

As much as I hate that stuff it fascinates me to no end because these people are some of the best "out of the box" thinkers I've ever met. I'd never go into business with one of them, but in general they were all pretty cool guys to drink with.

Any other examples of specific products or things like that you can share? I'm curious if these tend to be more info product-based or if these people are actually sourcing physical products or coders to create a crappy clone to sell.