As you've no doubt observed, I'm in the Amazon.Com affiliate program (and a few others) which means that if you click on an Amazon link here, you go to their site and I get a small commission on any purchases you make. This applies to anything you buy if you reach Amazon via the links here. Let's say I put up a link/plug for my book on MAD Magazine and you go to Amazon via that connection. Once there, you come to your senses and decide you have no interest whatsoever in my silly book but you would like a copy of George W. Bush's new book, Destroying Social Security for Dummies. Well, I get a commission on that sale…not a big one but at the end of each quarter, I have enough to pay for a few of my sillier eBay acquisitions and to tip a few websites and such. I'm very grateful for these bucks, by the way.
Recently, a number of Amazon affiliated websites have changed over to a similar program with Barnes & Noble. The motivating factor was that in the last election, Amazon made substantial cash donations to George W. Bush, whereas Barnes & Noble gave almost exclusively to Democrats. I am not a big believer in switching one's patronage of any business over something like that…except, of course, if it will make you feel good. Then, by all means, do it. I just don't think we should kid ourselves and think that kind of thing ever brings a corporation to its knees…or even get noticed in most instances.
While I was briefly mulling the shift, I noticed that lately, Barnes & Noble has sometimes had cheaper prices on some items. They're not a whole lot cheaper — usually 2% or thereabouts — and sometimes, it's the other way around: Amazon is 2% cheaper. I gave the matter more thought than it probably deserved (about 20 seconds) and decided to offer both and let you folks comparison-shop…and if you care about the political donations of the company that sells you your Will Ferrell DVDs, fine. I'd give you a choice. So I signed up for the Barnes & Noble affiliate plan. I have, however, since decided not to carry through with it and post their links.
Here's why: When I started configuring them, I noticed that the Barnes & Noble affiliate links place a small "spyware" cookie on your system. It's part of a marketing program called BFast that shares information between different retailers about your purchasing and web browsing habits. As spyware goes, it's one of the less intrusive specimens. Still, the principle bothers me and, of course, there's no way of predicting what kind of data BFast will be collecting six months from now or what they'll be doing with it. A year or two ago, I was an affiliate of Time-Life Books and I ditched those links because they used BFast. (That affiliate program was run by the same outfit that runs the Barnes & Noble one.) As far as I can tell, Amazon's links do nothing more than make sure I get my cut.
For the benefit of those of you who are interested in purging your system of spyware or adware, this is one of the few areas of my life where I become Felix Unger, cleansing every little nook of my system to within an inch of its life. I've installed Giant Anti-Spyware, which scans my system every night. This is a good, simple program which may soon stop being a good, simple program. It was acquired within the last week or so by the Microsoft Corporation. Someday, we will all be acquired by the Microsoft Corporation but right now, they've purchased Giant and they apparently plan to adapt it into some future Windows update, at which point it will not probably work as well. I also run Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Pest Patrol, each of which finds and recommends the removal of a few things that the others ignore. And on top of this, my current version of Norton AntiVirus scans for and suggests the deletion of some things that the four other programs let pass. Only two of these five have any issue with BFast but I still thought it would be better not to expose any of you who come here to possible infiltration. Except, of course, by my way of thinking.