Affiliate marketing Goliath eBay recently pulled the plug on its existing affiliate program tracking—centralized at ValueClick’s (VCLK) Commission Junction (CJ) network—and is unveiling what it calls Project Rover (via Jangro.com).  Notably, reporting will remain centralized at CJ.  According to eBay:

Project Rover has been designed to work seamlessly with the Commission Junction interface, increase the effectiveness of our affiliate’s marketing campaigns, and will be rolled out to all countries.

The benefits for affiliates/publishers?  Says eBay:

- Reduced ad / cookie blocking (reference)
- Fewer URL / server redirects
- Global tracking

In short, eBay is taking its tracking out of a network and into its own control.  Why?

Asks long-time CJ affiliate and former employee Scott Jangro, “Is CJ being disintermediated? This move at least puts CJ in a very weak position as they can be switched out in a flash once the program is humming along on the new links.”

Sounds familiar.

I spoke with David Lewis (winner of this year’s CJ Horizon award for innovation) this morning about the situation and he speculates that the allure of (my words) “CJ as a source of great publishers” remains a strong one; hence, eBay is not willing to walk away.  After all eBay is more than capable of providing a reporting interface considering its technology prowess.  Why keep the CJ reporting tool in place?

My perspective remains a confused one as search-based affiliates have become an endangered species in recent months… and CJ seems to be best at providing eBay with a means to meet such affiliates.  Point being eBay is likely meeting fewer and fewer search affiliates through CJ as time goes on.