How the UCENet Became Instrumental in Improving the Affiliate Marketing Industry

In 2018, the Unsolicited Communications Network (UCENet) called the affiliate marketing industry’s attention over lapses in complying with privacy policies. UCENets reviewed more than 900 websites and examined 6,536 consumer complaints raised against affiliate marketing platforms. Most of the issues were related to misleading ads, and lack of consent with regard to sending of electronic communications or emails. UCENet’s findings served as a wake up call for the affiliate marketing industry to be more mindful on how marketers and programs work to generate revenues.

Other UCENet findings pertained to the absence of self-regulation in the terms of services between merchants, affiliate marketers and affiliate platforms. It was also noted that most of the publicly available agreements do not have guidelines that establish permissible communication. Having them restricted the use of websites in sending out unsolicited emails, more commonly known as spam messages.

Affiliate Marketing and the Need to Focus on Quality Marketing Strategies Over Quantity

Affiliate marketing works toward promoting a business, its product or services, by allowing affiliates to create content aimed at converting readers into becoming referrals, who can potentially generate sales. However, consumers prefer not to be inundated with ads and promotions in their emails or social media accounts right after reading an affiliate marketer’s content.

While providing information about products or services are important, consumers are more likely to avoid those that send them information without asking permission.

That is why affiliate programs today focus on attracting high-quality marketers whose first important goal is to establish themselves as reliable and trustworthy sources of product information.

Trustworthiness is the foundation of a successful career as an affiliate marketers. It puts marketers in a better position in fortifying the connection between them and their audience.

Most affiliate marketers perform product reviews as a way to demonstrate their personal knowledge of how a product or service works. These are the marketers who exhibit their own passion and belief in the products they recommend. Quality marketers therefore tend to specialize in a specific niche, as it allows them to emphasize the benefits over negative considerations or limitations taken against the product.

While some other affiliate marketers host a website that simply organize a range of products into categories, it would be to their advantage to provide more than just links to the online business selling each product. While they are driving traffic to the retailer’s or manufacturer’s website using their referral code, it does not create the same level of trust established by quality affiliate marketers through their insightful content.

Those looking to improve their affiliate marketing skills may be interested to read an article titled “Jeff Lerner Reviews: He is the Ultimate Businessman” published by The Signal, a local news publication in Santa Clarita, California.

The article contains reviews on how Jeff Lerner was able to successfully navigate his career in a digital environment, into becoming an authority in the field of affiliate marketing. The news article can be accessed.

5 Simple Tips for Better Website Security

Don’t give your website away. Make it safe and secure so that it makes it difficult for hackers to get anything from your site. With a safe and secure website, your SEO efforts such as link building and guest blogging could be as easy as possible. Services like outreachmonks.com recommend five simple measures that every company can carry out without spending a lot of time or money.

5 Simple Tips for Better Website Security

1. Make sure that it is up to date
The Internet community is continuously developing open source solutions and generally recognizes bugs and security gaps quickly and fixes them even faster. However, you only benefit from the fixed reaction of the community and the development team if you keep your system up to date. With many CMS solutions, updates can be automated using plug-ins. With the ” Easy-Update Manager ” for WordPress you keep the popular system up to date and thus actively contribute to website security. Since plug-ins and other add-ons are independent programs, you have to check them separately to ensure that they are up to date.

But even if you have put together your website without the help of a CMS, you should pay attention to the latest versions. PHP or MySQL, for example, should always be up to date so that attackers do not have open doors.

2. Regular back-ups
If hackers have gained access despite security precautions, they can cause considerable damage. Not only does data espionage and abuse occur frequently, but hackers also overwrite or delete entire databases in order to cover their tracks. All important content should therefore be backed up regularly. This is a precautionary measure in two ways: even with a standard update, individually adapted system files may be overwritten. A regular backup of all data is, therefore, a must for every company.

There are also tools for this precaution: There are various plug-ins for WordPress and other CMS can also be equipped with appropriate extensions to facilitate a backup of the entire website. If, on the other hand, you work without a CMS, you can manually save the server content externally or you can use a tool such as rsync.

3. Secure login data
Secure access data should be a matter of course. But in everyday life, it looks different, because the most popular password remains the number sequence “123456”. In addition, many users adopt user names suggested by the system, such as “Admin” or “Administrator” – in combination with weak passwords, an easy target for hackers. The following applies to user names and passwords: no real names or simple, easily understandable combinations. A secure password requires a random string of characters and must be long enough.

4. Stay informed
Anyone who wants to protect their website from hackers and other criminal cyber-attacks should inform themselves regularly about current dangers and security gaps. The first point of contact is of course the respective community. Most forums have tons of website security threads. There, possible security risks are usually recognized first, discussed, and ideally rectified immediately. To find out about system-independent risks, it is worth taking a look at the website of the Federal Office for Information Security, for example.

5. HTTPS and SSL certificate
HTTPS secures the exchange of sensitive data. With the help of SSL (Secure Socket Layer), the data exchange between server and client is encrypted. Hackers cannot easily read or intercept the transmitted data. The certificate can be purchased on several websites. With many hosting providers, the certificate is included in the web hosting package or offered for an additional fee. Another plus: The visitor recognizes the website security certificate by the “lock symbol” in the browser and the HTTPS transport protocol – this creates trust with potential customers.

Capital One Credit Card Safe Online Shopping

Online shopping is fast and it is simply safer and uncomplicated. It is all the better that you can get a lot of products even cheaper online. Capital One Credit CardHowever, remember not to simply order all your purchases from large, international online shops.

Regional businesses and smaller companies, in particular, deserve support in this exceptional location. You can also check smartshopper for cards you can use for online shopping.

But no matter where you end up shopping online, there are some traps lurking when shopping online.

Capital One Credit Card: Beware of the bargain trap

It is important to be careful, for example, with offers that are too good to be true when viewed in the light. Some online stores are not what they seem. Their operators try to defraud unsuspecting buyers, for example by making copies of real shops. They usually lure with high discounts that are below the market price of the product.

So refrain from ad hoc purchases and use one of the price comparison apps. This will give you a feel for the usual price. If an offer is well below the average, you must be cautious. Then take a close look at the shopping page. Many spelling and grammatical errors in the texts are not a good sign.

Furthermore, both a data protection declaration and terms and conditions must be available. If any of the documents are missing,  you must not buy from them. The same applies if they only offer prepayment as a payment method. Because here the probability is higher that no goods will arrive.

Capital One Credit Card: Pay attention to the encrypted connection

An encrypted connection is important if you want to transfer personal information and bank details to a shop.

If you want to buy from a shop you don’t know, first, google the name and look for reviews and testimonials. Only positive reviews are possible, but should still make you suspicious.

Check the location and owner of the shop domain. Compare the information with the imprint of the shop, which also contains a lot of information about the provider. The company name must be given with the address and full name of the operator.

The KYC Process – Solutions and Methods in Verifying Identity of Customers

Pursuant to the adoption of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Act by all countries, it became imperative for banks to fully verify customers’ ID. The mandate requires all financial institutions to apply due diligence in knowing their clients, up to the extent of assessing the potential risks posed by their financial transactions. The entire verification and assessment steps is known internationally, as the Know Your Client or KYC identification verification process.

Prior to granting a person approval to do business with a bank or any type of business organization in which payment, or receipt of money through banks is involved, and whether transacting offline or online, it is important for a financial or business entity to authenticate the genuineness of the credentials presented by a customer as proof of his or her identity and permanent address.

Through a series of streamlined verification protocols usually with the aid of a KYC software, a bank, a financial entity or a business enterprise can make certain that it is opening its portals only to individuals who engage in legal activities to ensure the safety and security of its business systems and operations.

As the Internet enabled people from all around the world to quickly send and receive payments for various purposes, KYC technologies likewise improved in order to streamline the verification processes when onboarding customers looking to use an online or e-commerce platform.

Notable Technologies Used in KYC identification Verification Process

Data provided by an online applicant through credentials presented as proof of identity and address, are extracted for verification by a technology known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The OCR helps the KYC system recognize and thereafter, convert into text all information constituting scanned documents, images and photos.

Once converted into readable text, the KYC system’s identity verification solution will check for any anomalies by cross-checking the information using the following methods:

Database Method – This manner of checking significantly reduces the time and effort to manually review information as it makes uses of both offline and online databases with which to compare or cross-check data.

Online Verification – This method of ID verification is more rigid as it uses biometrics, artificial intelligence, computer vision in addition to human review. Applicants registering online are required to furnish not only ID credentials but also a picture of themselves holding at least one of the IDs being submitted.

Credit Bureau-Based Verification – This method authenticates information through major credit bureaus. Credit bureaus are companies that store large amounts of personal and credit-related information to determine the credit worthiness of individuals. However, this method has limitations as the bureaus’ files do not include people who have no credit history.

Yet despite these technological advancements, cyber criminals have also devised ways with which to circumvent the security features, usually by using malwares or phishing information from customers whose identities have already been authenticated.

The Two-Factor ID Verification Method

Additionally, a new ID authentication method known as the Two-Factor Verification System is now in use by most online businesses to ensure that the customer logging in is the bonafide owner of the account. A customer will receive a one-time password in his registered communication device, which he will use to authenticate the legitimacy of the login activity.

Here’s an example:

The website JAA Lifestyle for one, which offers income-earning opportunities to people who spend most of their time online, strictly complies with the KYC verification requirement. This online platform offers a decent stream of regular income to qualified members just by watching at least 60 ads per day. To ensure the legitimacy of all member login activities at the JAA lifestyle Login page, the site employs the Two-Factor Verification method.

Additionally, existing members can grow their income by recruiting people so they can build their own network of ad viewers. However, know beforehand that the site requires all applicants to pay a KYC processing fee.

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