I don't understand this kind of callous judgement of writers trying to make money. We don't see judgement here for the Amazon engineers that wrote the ref system, or Amazon for, well, selling product. I find it frustrating - somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?

What, to you, would have been an acceptable way for this writer to present their research? Raw data handed to the internet on a silver platter as they bow out of the room and fund a server to allow us to access it?

I disagree that the article is clickBAIT. I agree that the writer picked a title that would garner clicks, and then they gave us some interesting (to me) research. It wasn't holistic, it doesn't tell us EVERYTHING about Amazon, no, but it gave me enough to Google if I'm more interested.

And if they're gonna link to Amazon products anyway, why wouldn't they use referral links? Are we going to lambast someone for seeing a harmless way to make some change and taking advantage of it?

> I don't understand this kind of callous judgement of writers trying to make money. We don't see judgement here for the Amazon engineers that wrote the ref system, or Amazon for, well, selling product. I find it frustrating - somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?

I don't care that they use affiliate links.

Those links need to be clearly marked as affiliate links and the article needs to disclose the use of affiliate links.

I disagree. I think all links to Amazon should be affiliate links. So if someone doesn't put them, I am disappointed in them. :)

Why?

I, for one, am keenly interested in all things Amazon.

I've been following L2 Inc for a few years now. Their analysis suggests switch to voice is enabling Amazon to diminish brand value.

"How Amazon is Dismantling Retail"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MOwRTTq1bY

Any independent analysis that confirms, refutes, or adds nuance piques my interest.

"somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?"

Heck yeah, on this point, I'd much rather the writer get a few cents from anyone who chooses to buy the thing--crowd-source that revenue--than just a lump sum from a manufacturer.

> somehow the writer has no integrity because they want money for their work?

Writers job is writing article, spread news and knowledge, and make money.

If you write ads and claims it an article or news, you loss your integrity?

Does this sound reasonable to you?

Before you ask whether that sounds reasonable, I'd need to be convinced this is an ad. To me it is an article, one that apparently someone had to thumb through a couple hundred patent applications to write, among other research.

I used ads as an example.

The article can be described as an article embedded with Amazon afflicted links.

Put that in the disclaimer.

The article is not pro amazon. It reveals new information. The writer has done research, tracked goods to their origin warehouses, even bought some products and reached out to multiple amazon executives for comment.

Clumping it together with the typical amazon affiliate click bait that offer the minimum bare basic content and exist solely for affiliate link income is misleading and uncharitable.

Google, Facebook, Snapchat all exist on ad income so in many ways writers, journalists and software engineers are on the same boat.

I feel a little differently here.

1. Amazon most likely does want to keep it quiet that these are house brands, only because they have to walk the line between third party sellers, traditional retail and their house brands.

There are examples of Amazon straight up copying items and putting them under their "Amazon Basics" brand - check out their laptop stands vs the Rain Design mStand.

2. I suspect that it's just a script that adds the Amazon Affiliate tag to the URLs. This is pretty typical for large publication CMS's.

I didn't even realize that these were supposed to be secret. I vaguely recall getting emails about Happy Belly and Wickedly Prime (I guess the author left out Wickedly Prime...). I'm pretty sure I've also gotten emails and physical mailers about Lark & Ro and Scout & Ro, but maybe Amazon was targeting people (like me) that buys a lot of women's and children's clothing on the site? Amazon Fashion does their own thing all the time.

I also get targeted a lot for Simple Joys by Carter's, which is a baby clothing line made just for Amazon Prime members but not a white label product, which I find very fascinating. And the last thing I bought under that brand was so much nicer than the general Carter's experience of ripping twenty million of those plastic tags off.

Almost every major department store and big box retailer has their own white label brands. Amazon is not unique in doing this nor in making it slightly obscure. You can usually figure out which ones are which.

Hello: author here! I honestly have no idea what that tracking tag is, but 07/20 was the date I started writing this story! Guessing it's just Amazon tracking to see where traffic is coming from. But if you have any other questions about the story or my journalistic integrity, I'm here to answer them!

That tracking tag is an affiliate ID allowing Quartz to receive a small cut whenever someone clicks through and buys something. Most likely it was added automatically by the Quartz CMS, as is common practice.

Probably just ignore the guy questioning your journalistic integrity.

Hi Mike - can you clarify this sentence from near the end of the article? I'm only seeing two payments to Amazon.

It’s now gotten to the point where it’s quite easy to pay Amazon three times in one order: for shipping, which you get access to through Prime, and for a product that’s actually just an Amazon-made product.

Depends on how you're shipping, but if you do overnight/expedited shipping, you still have to pay for that on top of the cost of your Prime membership.

The way I understand it is that Prime membership doesn't just pay for shipping (even if many people only use it for that).

As others have mentioned, this was likely added automatically by Quartz to get a few extra cents/dollars from any story linking to an Amazon product/page.

Quartz probably has a page somewhere disclaiming their affiliate linking policy (which is likely: "we have affiliate links. They are separate and do not change the content of a story.") You can see an example of Wired's policy here: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/affiliate-link-policy/

How would Amazon change the URLs on your article? More likely, if you didn't do it on purpose, is that Quartz's CMS automagically appends that tag into any Amazon.com links.

Likely the writer is just that - a writer. He has demonstrated (harmless) ignorance of how tracking tags work. The other posters betting on the website he writes for automatically adding affiliate tags to amazon links is the most likely guess here.

Or Amazon may have added the tags as the writer was copying the URLs.

Honestly, it doesn't seem like something to fault the writer for.

Small Parts used to be an independent store - it was acquired in 2005[0]. I wonder how many of the other brands came in via purchase? Not that it matters; it's been 12 years, I'd expect Small Parts to be fully integrated.

[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2012/amazoncom-push-nuts-bolts/

How would Amazon know the date you started writing the article?

I'm honestly not sure ! It could've been a CMS thing — will need to enquire.

Confirmed through several sources that `tag=` links are definitely referral links.

I have never seen Quartz's CMS, but it's likely adding those referral trackers to any Amazon link in any article.

Source: have worked for a few online-native magazines and seen this feature multiple times

I don't know, it's not the story of the century, but I found it interesting and clicked around most of the links to the Amazon brands. And only among Internet nerds are affiliate links seen as sleazy.

> And only among Internet nerds are affiliate links seen as sleazy.

Given the subject matter of the article, that may be an unwarranted assumption.

I'd argue that the only reason "only Internet nerds" find affiliate links sleazy is that they're the only ones who know what they are. If the average Joe realized that merely clicking on a link and going shopping might monetarily reward the person who published the link, he'd find that sleazy too.

Affiliate link defenders: Imagine this scenario. One of your family members or a close friend has been sending you "links to a few cool/funny sites" every few weeks for the last 5 years. Your friend can find such great web sites! That last one with cats swimming in a pool was hilarious! Then all of a sudden you learn that all this time he was getting paid every time you clicked on one of those links, but never disclosed this to you. Wouldn't you feel like that was just a tiny bit sleazy?

It's literally an article about the brands. What else were they going to link to instead? I don't think you've thought this through very carefully.

How does that make the practice any less sleazy? I wonder why a publisher wouldn't want to disclose somewhere in the text (even in 6 point gray on white text in a footer) that the publisher gets paid when users browse to Amazon through the links and buy something?

Because, if one were informed of that, one probably wouldn't click on the links. This would earn the publisher less money in the form of kickbacks. As this is undesirable, they simply don't do it.

What weird planet are we on where people would avoid clicking a link they'd otherwise be inclined to click because someone might make 3 cents from the click? You guys spend way too much time thinking about this stuff.

I may or may not avoid clicking, but if it happens enough, I might be motivated to install a browser plugin that strips out tracking tokens, much like I run an ad blocker full time. And yes, I know that the vendor's web site can still look at the referrer logs, but those can be stripped as well.

I don't think it's weird in any way to value one's privacy. This is shady stuff because 1. it leaks personal information and 2. most people don't know it happens and 3. they would have to actively take countermeasures to stop it.

> I might be motivated to install a browser plugin that strips out tracking tokens

That's not a bad idea. I'll make a note to check into that. Cheers

And yet here we are, discussing this... together.

But I liked the links? Not really. The value I get from watching stupid cats has no connection to what they're getting paid.

Not clickbait bro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_brand

>Large companies wanting to reach a new demographic may use a secret brand to establish clout among that demographic. This imprint brand may use the distribution network of the parent brand, but ship from a dummy company.

Not the greatest story but it delivered exactly what was promised - which is brands that are known but not known as belonging to Amazon. That's what was secret.

Also who cares if there are affiliate links? It's a nice way for the publisher to make money and makes absolutely no difference to you. Do you use an adblocker too? Why the outrage?

In the real, non-tinfoil hat, world those affiliate links are automatically added by the CMS and the writer has nothing to do with it, sees no revenue from it, and has no idea it's happening. This is Quartz, not some dude's blog.

Sorry, not everything is a conspiracy to get you.

Nice catch. I used to think Quartz had some quality standards.

I never understood the outrage behind referral links.

If somebody is linking to Amazon and users start shopping, why is it so bad that they get a slice of the pie?

But now it looks like the article only exists to get people to click Amazon links, and not because there's any actual news.

Did you know all of those brands belonged to Amazon before you read the story?

Are those polar opposites?

At its heart, it is a conflict of interest and a clear violation of traditional journalistic ethics. At the very least, it is contrary to what one might assume to be a societal norm. Once one is aware of what they're doing, one feels taken advantage of and that is simply not acceptable.

No, it's just not a good look for a news organization to have content so entangled with income, especially if they don't even mention it. I think http://thewirecutter.com/ does a good job, and they're also way more open about the fact that the site is covered in affiliate links.

Referral links are a form of advertisement. Quartz should have a disclaimer attached to the article since they mix their content with advertising.

Almost every major website is doing the exact same thing. Here is Wired's policy on affiliate links: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/affiliate-link-policy/

They are almost assuredly added automatically so the author had no clue it was happening. I used to author a Wordpress plugin that did this for bloggers so they wouldn't need to worry about generating links through the Amazon website then going back to their Wordpress dashboard.

to add to your post, that affiliate link stays active on amazon accounts that clicked it for 24hours and pays out to the owner for every product purchased in that time frame

Well that's interesting. Do new affiliate links push the old one(s) out? Do they stack?