Is Barefruit Good For the Internet? Are they using underhand techniques to Hijack traffic?
Who are BareFruit?
Basically they work with tiscali in the UK to manage display of information if your are using a dead link / mistyped link
So what happens if I type in an incorrect domain?
Typically you get a page like the following: (Click to see full image)
BUT the big issue comes in when you make a near miss on the domain for a big company (as pointed out by Keith Budden here).
Using the example of CURRYS.co.uk. If you were to mistype the domain syntax ie www.currys.co.u.k, you will be redirected to currys.co.uk. Which seems OK, until you realise that it redirects through an Affiliate Window affiliate link.
Now affiliates have been prohibited from using domains that use the word currys or contain mispellings of their brands, the following is copied and pasted from Awins T&C
If affiliates wish to direct traffic through to their own site then their domains must not include the word ‘Currys’. This restriction includes mis-spellings of the brand.
Examples: www.currrys.co.uk, www.curryoffers.com, www.curriesfridges.co.uk etc.
So does www.currys.co.u.k (and hundreds of other vairiations) breach Awins t&cs? Yes it does. This leads us to one of two scenarios, Barefruit is breaking these T&C and should be picked up by affiliate window OR there is a ‘brand bidding’ style agreement between awin/currys/barefruit. Which is worse?
The scariest thing is that if you were to type in a subdomain that is not being used by currys followed by the .currys.co.uk you will see that the redirect happens through barefruit. If you type in wwww. or ww. you get a redirect through guess whos affiliate link.
Affiliate window are looking into the matter and I hope to get comment from them soon.
