[hammock]

>Frankly, this is not a new issue. It's just the effort by Google to use publisher content & data for their own profit continues to expand.

True. Publishers always hated that Facebook and Google would share too much of an article on their own platforms that no one would click through, and they'd miss the ad impression.

This thing is a similar issue but missing out on affiliate clicks instead of ad impressions.

I'm glad the author is keen and pointing it out, though.