When thousands of consumers got emails asking them to help electronics retailer Best Buy combat Internet fraud, they were eager to help. But those who clicked on the link and entered credit card and Social Security numbers learned the ugly truth too late: They’d been had.

The link took them to a “spoof” page that looked just like Best Buy’s home page but was actually operated by thieves. “The trust we worked so long to achieve was threatened by this rip-off,” said Dawn Bryant, a spokeswoman for Best Buy. “This is some- thing a business should never have to contend with.”

Neither should consumers. But the reality is that identity theft, predatory advertising, spamming, spying and other sleazy practices have left Internet shoppers understandably wary of buying goods on line. The number of complaints of Internet fraud nearly tripled last year to more than 48,200, according to data from the Internet Fraud Complaint Center operated by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. The Federal Trade Commission says the Internet is now the focus of almost one-in-five of the complaints it receives.

“If these kinds of practices continue, it will run the whole thing out of business,” said Ray Everett-Church of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), an activist and lobbying organization.

Honest affiliate marketers face a double threat. Not only do they have to overcome consumer skepticism, but they have to compete with unethical rivals. Several industry organizations have teamed up with consumer groups and government agencies to educate affiliates and corporate program managers about ways to build consumer trust while combating ethically bankrupt practices.

All the ugly horses

One notorious practice involves Trojan horse software that bundles one or more secret programs along with an application that an Internet user desired.

“A surfer might go to a site and download something that looks interesting or might be fun,” said Jim Sterne, the author of five books about online marketing, including World Wide Web Marketing. “Unbeknownst to them, the download includes a piece of spyware, parasiteware, or thiefware as it is sometimes called.”

In its most benign form, a program might serve ads in a window within the application interface. For example, Cydoor is an ad-serving application that rotates ads in a window on the user interface of applications such as file-sharing software from Kazaa and Grokster.

“No one really likes ads, myself included,” said Robert Regular, Cydoor’s vice president of sales and marketing. “But we are just an ad delivery mechanism showing ads only when you’re in the application, to make money to pay the developers who wrote the software.” He said that Cydoor does not gather any personal information on its uses.

Advertising-supported software gets on shakier ground when it includes technology to track people’s movements on the Web. People who provide this software say this tracking technology improves their ability to show more relevant marketing messages. The problem is, most consumers wouldn’t know they’re being watched.

“The user agreement might have a buried reference, or there might be a box to click to accept the other software, only it doesn’t fully explain what is being accepted,” said Jason Catlett of Junkbusters, a privacy advocacy group. Catlett said this is “another example of junk consent creeping into the fine print of transactions. Even if it’s buried somewhere in the legalese, ethical marketers should not give customers stuff from others that [the consumers] don’t expect.”

What really infuriates affiliate marketers are hidden programs that pop up advertisements for competitors while someone is shopping on the affiliate’s site. Sterne said Gator, a marketing company that offers a free electronic wallet for consumers, “waits quietly until the surfer goes to a merchant site that sells a product that is competitive to one of Gator’s clients. Gator then pops up their client’s ad.”

Conceivably, shoppers might benefit from a better deal, but it is a bit like waving an ad for Fords in front of someone test-driving a Chevrolet. Affiliates call this predatory advertising because they feel their commission has been stolen after they converted the shopper into a buyer.

Sterne noted that many people intentionally download Gator, but said “the sticky part is when Gator comes included in something and the surfer is unaware they agreed to install it.”

Gator executives declined to be interviewed. A company representative referred questions to a FAQ on the company’s Web site, where the home page clearly states that users must agree to see ads in return for the free software.

Can the spam

Unsolicited commercial email now accounts for more than half of all messages, but nobody seems to want it. That leads to a curious question: Why would anyone want to send out emails that nobody wants to read? The answer may stem from the type of commission offered to affiliates by merchants selling those products.

“If a program rewards the affiliate for clickthroughs and not sales, it’s more apt to be abused,” Everett-Church said. “If all [the affiliate has] to do is get the person to go to a site, you are more apt to spam.” On the other hand, he said, programs that pay only for leads that result in sales don’t experience the same kind of abuse, because affiliates must add value in the form of information before users will click on their links.

Everett-Church recommends that affiliate programs that pay commissions based on clickthroughs institute checks and balances to make sure users aren’t gaming the system. “If you’re rewarding people for volume but there aren’t controls in place, you’re unwittingly encouraging abuse,” he said.

The worst spammers buy CDs containing millions of email addresses, then use software to automatically spew out millions and millions of ads touting prescription drugs, low-cost mortgages or what-have-you. But the problem doesn’t end there. If you send your email newsletter to someone who didn’t specifically ask for it, you could be in trouble.

“Spamming is against the law in most states,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. “Most affiliate agreements have clear usage guidelines on how you can advertise them. If you’re caught spamming, you could be fired as an affiliate for the merchant on whose behalf you spammed.”

The fallout can radiate beyond your network and get you into hot water with your Internet service provider, said Brian Huseman, a staff attorney for the Federal Trade Commission. “Your ISP may shut you down, and then you can’t send any email at all,” Huseman said. Worse, you could be placed on a blacklist so that even if your ISP reinstated you, your emails would be bounced by many other ISPs.

“An affiliate marketer who intends to be around for any length of time can’t use these kinds of marketing approaches,” said David Nielsen, founder and principal of consumer information resource FightIdentityTheft.com. “Overall, they’re a threat to the legitimacy of the industry.”

Got ethics?

It’s not the technology that’s to blame, industry experts say. It’s the unethical or uneducated businesses that abuse that technology. Unfortunately, it can be hard to know where to draw the line.

“What makes the difference between ethical and unethical is, the person has to know what is happening. You have to be straight with your customers as to why you collect information [like email addresses] and what you use it for,” said Rotenberg from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Smart affiliates use their tech tools wisely. For example, there’s a very simple guideline for email marketing. “If the person has asked for an e-mail, it’s okay, but otherwise, don’t send it,” said Steven Salter, director of operations and administration for BBBOnLine, the Internet arm of the Better Business Bureau in the United States.

Huseman agreed e-mai

l ads are fine on an “opt-in” basis where the user makes a choice to receive messages. That can happen when a consumer makes a purchase or registers on a Web site. Typically, a box will be provided with the prompt, “Click here to receive messages about promotions from this merchant.” The very best approach is double-verification, when users who sign up for promotions get a second email that confirms their interest.

BBBOnLine and other groups are anxious to help rebuild consumer trust. “The whole BBBOnLine program was created as a way to give online businesses a way to show they can be trusted,” said Salter. BBBOnLine.com has a reliability seal for Internet businesses. To qualify, affiliates must join the BBB chapter where their company is headquartered and agree to participate in the BBB’s advertising self-regulation program.

You can also bolster consumer confidence by designing a professional-looking site. “If your site doesn’t pass the visual inspection, users will think it’s not very credible,” said B. J. Fogg of Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, author of a study on Web credibility conducted in partnership with Consumer WebWatch. According to Fogg’s research, design was the top factor consumers used when deciding how trustworthy a Web site appeared to be.

To differentiate yourself from spoofers, it’s a good idea to let consumers know who you are. Be clear in your advertising and on your Web site that you’re an affiliate of the merchants you mention, not the merchant itself. To maximize credibility, it’s a good idea to provide actual contact information, not just a “contact us” form, on your site, according to Leslie Marable, research project manager for Consumer WebWatch.

It’s not enough to have your heart in the right place. Ethical affiliates must constantly monitor their own activities to make sure they stay firmly on the side of the good guys.

And if the affiliate marketing industry doesn’t cleanup its own act, others will likely step in to do the job.

Abused consumers are taking up arms against unethical merchants and affiliate marketers, encouraging state and national legislators to consider tough laws to prevent spam and to punish scamsters. The question for affiliates and program managers is whether to work with them or against them.

JANIS MARA covered interactive advertising and marketing as a senior writer for Adweek. Her articles have appeared extensively in a variety of print publications.