Brian Livingston

The large e-commerce affiliate network known as Commission Junction (CJ) is gearing up a campaign that uses automated searches of the Web to catch dishonest participants. The network has contracted with Cyveillance, a firm that monitors the online use of trademarked terms, to “spider” the Internet seeking affiliates that generate commissions without legitimately earning them. […]

Commission Junction, arguably the world’s leading payment network for e-commerce traffic, has permanently banned one of its largest “loyalty” programs, according to CJ officials. The affiliate is Shop At Home Select, a subsidiary of the Belcaro Group of Greenwood Village, Colo. The company promises small rebates on Web purchases consumers make while using the Shop […]

A new vendor of off-brand inkjet ink seemingly pops up every day. Should you buy the cheapest ink you can find for your particular printer? Or is there is a better way to get both value and quality for your printouts? The truth is that you may be unhappy with some of the cheap inks […]

What if you had to buy a new car with no idea how many miles per gallon it would get? What if you had to buy an air conditioner or refrigerator with no way to tell how much electricity it would consume? We face a situation like that when buying inkjet printers, inks, and printing […]

It’s a very good idea to buy inkjet inks and papers that can make your documents and photo prints last. But what’s the best way to preserve for future reference those documents you’ve already printed — which may not always have been produced with the highest-quality supplies? In this space last week, I wrote about […]

Everybody always talks about the price of inkjet cartridges, but nobody ever does anything about it — or do they? With more and more businesses relying on inkjet printers for their hard-copy needs, and more and more photos produced using computer printouts instead of traditional photochemical paper, the high cost of brand-name ink affects an […]

Adware makers are diverting millions of dollars from Web merchants to themselves, using various tricks that are years old — and now some big players are finding even bolder methods to make profits, according to an adware expert. Ben Edelman, a recent graduate of Harvard Law School and a recognized authority on adware and spyware […]

The catastrophe that Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast last week should give us all a new appreciation for the many modern services we take for granted. The immediate response must be to care for the victims and rebuild whatever can be replaced. But, after the debris has been cleared […]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation — a nonprofit organization that works to preserve freedom and privacy on the Internet — has decided to challenge new laws in Michigan and Utah that would tax senders of ordinary e-mail while leaving spammers untouched. “We’re definitely taking a position, which is ‘Opposed,’ ” says Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney […]

Residents of Utah and Michigan are likely to get less legitimate e-mail, but receive more spam, under new state laws. I wrote on July 26 that the two states had imposed e-mail taxes that have nothing to do with spam. And on August 2, I explained that legitimate publishers of opt-in e-mail newsletters would have […]