Toolbars and Network Quality
This week, a recently launched toolbar from loyalty Publisher OneCause (owned by RakutenUSA, the entity that also owns LinkShare) was found to have a couple bugs in it.
The toolbar, like other loyalty site toolbars, is designed to inform OneCause members when they can earn contributions to their favorite cause as they shop. A final beta version of the toolbar was reviewed by LinkShare (as well as our competitors) and given the okay.
Bugs were discovered late last week, and some have speculated that LinkShare knew about them and deliberately ignored them. Nothing could be further from the truth.
OneCause tells us they are working on a fix for the bugs, and it will be deployed soon. When that happens, OneCause will update its site with the latest version of the application and remotely update all existing installs.
We take network quality seriously. That’s why we have a team dedicated to preserving the integrity of our network. That team applied the same standards to the OneCause toolbar as any other publisher toolbar. Some publishers may not like toolbars, and may disagree with the idea that it’s okay for a toolbar to allow “an end user’s express and informed consent” to see a “special offer or proposal”, but that is a different issue. We wanted to take a moment to reinforce to the community that we remain committed to ensuring that all members of our network are compliant with our Network Policies & Guidelines.
Mark Kirschner, CMO
[...] has made a post on their blog acknowledging the recent issues that have been raised about OneCause. Toolbars and Network Quality | LinkShare Blog: “We take network quality seriously. That’s why we have a team dedicated to preserving [...]