Link hijacking comes in various forms... not just from downloads. Let's say your affiliate link looks like this: www.url.com/?123456 , where 123456 is your affiliate ID. A link hijacker is interested in product and wants to purchase it. He also wants affiliate commission from product. He takes your ID 123456 and replaces it with his ID 999999 to look like this: www.url.com/?999999 . The result? He gets commission from product purchase. He modified link to benefit himself. You lose.

Here is another example of link hijacking: A customer comes to your website and sees a link to product that he wants to buy. When he moves mouse over your link information, he sees your affiliate url in status bar of his computer. Instead of clicking your affiliate link, he decides to manually type it into his address bar, leaving off affiliate referral code: www.url.com. This results in no affiliate tracking information and no commissions for you. You lose again!

So how much money could you be losing? I have read that an estimated 10-30% of commissions are lost due to affiliate link hijacking. Can you imagine kind of potential revenue that you might be losing right now?

Take Action by Protecting Yourself From Revenue Loss

In constant search for new scripts and software to improve my websites, I have run into several affiliate cloaking devices. Most of them cost around $50 or more. However, I did run into one cloaking script that is free. It is called Affiliate Link Cloaker (ALC). The site owner simply asks that you subscribe to their newsletter. By golly, I love free stuff, don't you! If you are interested in learning about this script and how it works, you can visit their site at webmasterinabox.net/affiliate_link_cloaker.html . They have other scripts that you might find useful as well. Now, get out there and protect those links!

The risk of violence comes in a variety of different forms. Following September 11, 2001 threats escalated to use of potentially harmful chemical and biological agents, directed targets of violence, bomb threats and an increase in threats against businesses. The ASSE survey also revealed that 74% of 750 respondents had not under-gone any formal risk assessment or management of potential for violence in workplace. To keep it simple and for a later discussion, if you work in an electrical or gas plant you should know risks.

What Others Are Saying About Workplace Security...

The landscape of workplace security has changed following September 11, 2001 and subsequent threats. Once relegated to back room of IT and facility management departments, corporate security issues have risen to such prominence over past three years that security concerns now have truly become corporate concerns. Robert Hahn, VP, Strategy & Secure Mail for Pitney Bowes Management Services, asks, "how does one calculate loss to a company if an office building is shut down for two to three days due to a false alarm?". For example, to clean buildings like in case of two Anthrax infected Post Offices on east coast required $150 million dollars and 30 months-time during which facilities were shut down to all but clean up crews and law enforcement, said, Robert Hahn. The threat is real along with a host of other potential threats; Terrorist demands, Business discontinuance, Theft of sensitive data and intellectual property, malicious computer viruses and intranet attacks, Key personnel taken hostage, Travel security concerns and Sabotage by disgruntled employee.

In a July 2004 on-line survey conducted by Pitney Bowes, they asked participants to define what term "security" meant to them. 89% of 409 respondents viewed security in broad based terms: protecting company information, protecting business systems and competitive intelligence. Between 65 - 71% viewed security as issues of physical and people security and privacy of employee information. Only 31% believed that their security was connected to neighboring facilities, roads or telecommunication systems. The responses in this particular survey correspond to ASSE Survey wherein 44% or 335 of 750 respondents said they had established or changed emergency response procedures. I can not reflecting on my age old adage that "Security is everyone's business and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound in cure".