Affiliate marketers have a constant worry about commissions being stolen by some lazy person out there who doesn't want to work. In some marketing circles, it is a widely held belief that this is an easy task that just takes a few keystrokes to accomplish.

Let's examine the fallacy in that assumption. It is very easy for someone to change the hop=your ID to hop=their ID. There is no arguing with that. After having clicked the Order Now button, the prospective purchaser will be taken to the checkout page. At the very bottom of the page, under the Terms of Sale and under the Click Bank copyright, the original affiliate ID is still displayed. This doesn't change just because the hop link has been changed. The appearance of this ID can't be changed. That means that the commission for the original and rightful marketer is securely protected.

The hop=value does not set the affiliate cookie. This necessary cookie is set when the link is clicked. That means that the hop=value can be changed and it will have no effect on the cookie.

Since the commissions are protected from this type of theft, are there other ways that the affiliate commissions can be stolen? There are two major areas of concern and, even though there is a real possibility of loss, there really is not much that can be done to stop them.

If the affiliate link is on the sales page, the unethical customer can see the Affiliates link and obtain their own link and buy through that link. Yes, it is considered bad form to buy from your own link; however, there is very little that can be done to stop it. Multiple PayPal accounts and email accounts guarantee the theft's anonymity.

Malware or Adware is capable of replacing genuine affiliate cookies. By substituting their own data, the legitimate affiliate marketer once again misses out on the sale.

Why do people continue to cloak their links. The simple answer is to make them look more professional. That is quite an acceptable reason. All marketers want their business to be perceived as first class and professional. The small things go a long way to reinforce this perception. Appearances are considered to be an area of importance.

But there is no reason to spend huge amounts of money on software to do this cloaking. You can easily do the same thing with a redirect page. Or check out free affiliate link cloaking software programs on Google.