Shawn Hogan, back in the early 2000’s was known by his company, like I was/am, named DigitalPoint. He and I joined the same circles in the SEO community back in the very early 2000s. We both ran software companies, I as a consulting firm, him more as building out software for ISPs to bill clients.

Shawn is a hard-core coder and he has built some amazing things and defending amazing things, so much so that he was profiled in Wired as a hero and the NY Times as an AdSense guru.

But what got him in trouble was his work as an eBay affiliate.

eBay’s Top Affiliate Marketer Was Just Sentenced To Federal Prison from Business Insider reports Shawn is going to prison for 5 months for “defrauding eBay of an alleged $28 million in online marketing fees.”

The case has been going on a while and Shawn says eBay’s affiliate team encouraged him, according to the reports. That being said, Shawn posted in his DigitalPoint Forums that he decided to settle. He wrote:

Shawn added more details on Twitter about the settlement:

I told him I was sorry and he said:

And in terms of his company, the forums, etc, no changes:

I’ve known shawn through the SEO space for now well over 13 years or so. It is always sad to see someone you’ve known go through stuff like this. And yes, I believe Shawn’s side of the story. I don’t take Shawn as a liar, what he may have done may have been illegal, but I don’t think he lied about what he did and did not do. But again, I did not follow the case, read the documents or have any inside information.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.