Russian Affiliate Networks Exposed by Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book, October 8, 2009 This week news came of affiliates and networks being robbed by the “Bahama botnet”, a major report on rogue Russian affiliate networks called “Partnerkas” and arrests in 48 countries in the largest cybercrime investigation ever. Other than that, it was a quiet week. /irony Perhaps the best reading comes in a report from Sophos that describes Russian “partnerkas”, bandit affiliate networks that specialize in spam for “fake watches, fake anti-virus software, fake pills and fake love.” The downloadable pdf from Sophos covers the history of the “spam kings”, the invitation-only nature of the networks concerned and the software tools that they use to create thousands of sites automatically, create and run social media accounts and redirect DNS records. It’s a great read (and in case you were wondering, it’s pronounced “partnyorka”). Filed under: Revenue About the Author Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book Chris Trayhorn is the Chairman of the Performance Marketing Industry Blue Ribbon Panel and the CEO of mThink.com, a leading online and content marketing agency. He has founded four successful marketing companies in London and San Francisco in the last 15 years, and is currently the founder and publisher of Revenue+Performance magazine, the magazine of the performance marketing industry since 2002.