AlternativeTo affiliate/referral link

Questions
1

end of this post contains “critical info”(basically tldr==“nvm sorry” :face_with_spiral_eyes: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: AKA I discover that water is wet)

hello. this is not exactly a privacy/security related question/report.

On ‘AlternativeTo’ website I found/noticed that software page Perplexity uses a different kind of link for the ‘Official Website’ which looks like this https://alternativeto.net/outgoing/software/perplexity-ai, whilst all the other software pages use a direct link for linking the respective official websites - a link that looks like this: https://www.google.com The “sus” part for me is that https://alternativeto.net/outgoing/software/perplexity-ai actually leads to a referral link: https://www.perplexity.ai/pro?referral_code=Y11XEAHK

Feel free to use the link (if it happens that you wish to have “$10 referral credit applied” for creation of Perplexity Pro account), but for me, I am just being curious about this “revelation”.

my question is, is this normal? for me it’s sus because I have no idea whose referral link that is. :smiley:

…
As a matter of fact, I just noticed the small notice at the bottom of Official Links section:
“Page may contain affiliate links. Affiliate links never affect ranking.”

I’m sorry to not have noticed this until now. If I’m just being “petty” feel free to just delete this topic. (I shall probably delete this topic later today ~if I can, if it’s still up)

thank you.

Long live Privacy (Guides) :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

2

Assuming the affiliate links don’t try to individually track you (only disclosing where you came from, and not assigning a unique identifier to you), and don’t impact the impartiality of the recommendations, I consider them to not be a big deal. Yes, if you end up buying something from the site you got linked to, then that site will not only know that you bought a certain product, but also that you found their site via AlternativeTo. I consider that more of a problem with the KYC status quo, because with or without the affiliate link, the store still knows what you buy, your name, your address, and often your cellphone number.

3

Genuine discussion question, is this possible? :slight_smile:

4

(post deleted by author)