rel-payment
Authors
Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen
The Problem
Prior Art
Anil Dash's proposal, 2002
Anil Dash's proposal in 2002 to use XHTML <link> element to define payment URLs:
payment LINK tags
There are already a lot of defined (if not quite standardized) possible values for the LINK element in XHTML. We're using them for RSS Auto-Discovery and, of course, for stylesheets already. But what about something like:
<link rel="appendix" type="text/html" title="payment" href="URL of Wishlist or Paypal Page" />
A standardized way of linking to the page where you pay for your patronage of a site. Granted, calling the payment page an "Apppendix" of the site you're visiting is fudging things a bit. Maybe there's a more elegant way?
Although this is similar to rel="payment" as we are proposing, it is not as flexible as it can only be used to define one payment location for an entire page (likely a tip jar or wishlist page). Perhaps rel="payment" could be used within the link element as well as within standard anchor tags?
Examples from the wild
Amazon Associates
Product with image
This is the code generated by Amazon for a single product endorsement with photo. Everything is generated automatically. The form can be replaced with another regular HTML link.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<body>
<table cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width=120 height=240 bgColor=#000000 border=0>
<tr>
<td>
<table cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=118 height=238 align=center bgColor=#ffffff border=0>
<tr>
<td>
<table width=100% height=238 border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0>
<tr align=center>
<td>
<a href=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00022AH6I/solitudedk-20?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1 target=_blank><img src=http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/P/B00022AH6I.01._SCTZZZZZZZ_.jpg vspace=3 border=0></a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td vAlign=center height=15%><center>
<a href=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00022AH6I/solitudedk-20?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1 target=_blank><font face=Arial color=#0000ff size=1>Kodak EasyShare DX7440 4MP Digital C...</font></a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr height=15%>
<td>
<center>
<font face=Arial color=#000000 size=-2>Kodak Digital </font>
</center>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height=15%>
<center><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=solitudedk-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&link_code=am1&path=tg/stores/offering/list/-/B00022AH6I/all/ASIN/B00022AH6I&camp=14573&creative=327641" target=_blank><font face=Arial color=#0000ff size=1>Best Price <font face=Arial color=#990000 size=1>$157.70</font></font></a></center>
</td>
</tr>
<tr height=15%>
<td>
<center><font face=Arial color=#000000 size=1>or Buy New <font color=#990000></font></font></center>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height=15%><center>
<table>
<form method="GET" action="http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/cart/add.html" target="_blank">
<tr>
<td>
<input type="hidden" name="SubscriptionId" value="D68HUNXKLHS4J" />
<input type="hidden" name="AssociateTag" value="solitudedk-20" />
<input type="hidden" name="ASIN.1" value="B00022AH6I" />
<input type="hidden" name="Quantity.1" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="linkCode" value="as1" />
<input type="image" name="submit.add" value="Buy from Amazon.com" border="0" alt="Buy from Amazon.com" src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/buttons/buy-from-tan.gif" />
</center>
</td>
</tr>
</form>
</table>
</center></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height=5% align=absbottom>
<center><a href=http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1 target=_blank>
<font face=Arial color=#a1a1a1 size=1>Privacy Information</font></a></center>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Text links
This is the code for a text link to a product category. The visible link text is chosen by the user.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789& tag=solitudedk-20&creative=9325&path=tg/browse/-/1"> Get Photography Books at Amazon </a> <img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=solitudedk-20&l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />
Banners
The following is the code generated by Amazon for generic Amazone banners. Note use of imagemap to create "privacy policy link".
<html>
<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0>
<table width=468 height=60 border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>
<tr valign=middle align=center>
<td>
<MAP NAME='boxmap'><AREA SHAPE='RECT' COORDS='379, 50, 469, 61'
HREF=http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1 target=_top>
<AREA COORDS='0,0,10000,10000' HREF=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?
tag=solitudedk-20&creative=333489&camp=15553&link_code=ez&path=
/tg/browse/-/171280 target=_top>
</MAP>
<img src=http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/
associates/2005/served-banners/us_banner_imag_468x60.gif
width='468' height='60' border='0' usemap='#boxmap'>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Search Boxes
Amazon offers search boxes:
<form action="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search">
<table class="normal" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="background-color:#fff;">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="top"
height="90" width="120" style="border: 1px solid #000000 !important;">
<tr>
<td style="background-color:#fff;" height="20" valign="bottom" align="center">
<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
font-size:10px !important; font-weight:bold !important;">Search Now:</span>
</td>
<td style="background-color:#fff;"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="background-color:#fff;" align="center" height="30" valign="top">
<input type="text" name="keyword" size="10" value="" />
</td>
<td style="background-color:#fff;" height="20" valign="top" align="left">
<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="blended" />
<input type="hidden" name="tag" value="solitudedk-20" />
<input type="image" border="0" value="Go" name="Submit"
src="http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/build-links/
ap-search-go-btn.gif" alt="[ Go ]" align="absmiddle" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="background-color:#000;" height="40">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/solitudedk-20">
<img src="http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/build-links/
searchbox-logo-126x32.gif" height="36" border="0" width="126"
alt="Amazon Logo" /></a></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
Practical examples of rel="payment"
Blog entry containing video interview with founders of a theater group. rel="payment" link points to the theater group's fundraising page where the reader is encourage to donate via PayPal.
Blog entry containing home video that uses music by a popular recording artist. rel="payment" link encourages reader to purchase the artist's CD at Amazon (could have used Amazon affilliate link as noted above).
Blog entry containing audio segment from an NPR interview. rel="payment" link encourages the reader to support NPR by purchasing something from the NPR Online Shop.