Pinterest to Disable Affiliate Links, Redirects and Tracking on Pins

While Pinterest's official stance is that the recent changes are to enhance the Pinner's experience, there's speculation about the social bookmarking site shoring up its monetization strategy and preparing for IPO.

Pinterest drives a lot of traffic: Throughout 2014 it was second only to Facebook in terms of overall referral traffic. To capitalize on this power, some of Pinterest’s users were taking advantage of affiliate links to generate revenue. Now, Pinterest is going to clamp down on the practice.

The social bookmarking site sent its users an email notifying them that affiliate, redirects and trackers on pins would be automatically removed. The email also noted that users could still participate in paid social media marketing, but they would have to abide by the company’s acceptable use policy.

According

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