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Ask HN: Is it OK to scrape data to gain affiliate membership?

6 points by liondancer ↗ HN
Is it OK to scrape data to gain affiliate membership?

I want to start a price comparison website in order to get commission by being a partner/affiliate to the products I am comparing prices with.

I am trying to be an affiliate but the requirement for me to be an affiliate is by having a working website with good content. I don't have good content because I don't have data on the products. To get good data, I need to be an affiliate. I see this problem sort of like the scenario where I need to have work experience in order to get my first job...

A work around I thought of was to create a scrapper but I am a bit worried that once I have a working website with scrapped data, the company I am applying for affiliate membership would void my application due to me scrapping their product data.

This is my first attempt at a business. I was wondering if anyone could chime in with some tips/suggestions/advice in this field. Thanks!

6 comments

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slater
scrapp -> scrape

And no, I wouldn't say that's OK. Morally, for one, but also probably illegal.

IC4RUS
Illegal how so? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what he is saying, but isn't he just getting publicly displayed product information from multiple companies, and then comparing it?

This is the sort of site I'm imagining: http://www.logicalincrements.com/

liondancer
Yes, this is more or less what I am trying to do. I am considering added images as well
IC4RUS
I can't speak to the legality of it, but I don't believe that this is immoral in any sense, especially because it sounds that you have to be approved as an affiliate by the company that displays the data you're scraping.
quickthrower2
Just talk to the affiliate manager and ask permission to do this. E.g. give you a 3 month trial affiliate membership then get them to review the site after 3 months.

Or maybe they can give you an example csv file in the meantime to demonstrate what the file will look like, and you swap in the real data once you are approved.

logiclabs
Most affiliate networks provide product data feeds for a lot of their members.

Nearly all affiliates I've seen prevent scraping in their terms and conditions of affiliation.. they will also have a limit of the types of marketing you can do, which may exclude comparison sites.

Alternatively, write a few blog articles on some of the products you are comparing and add some links to them, then you have content.