etailology

One of my favorite e-jargon words, a “mullet strategy” is named after the haircut. It amounts to a “business up front, party in the rear” approach to emarketing.

What this means, is that there are plenty of ebusinesses (retailers included) that present a reputable public face, but rely on the “party in the rear” to keep things running. YouTube is an obvious example: the site presents itself as a user-uploaded-video-community, but in reality much of the traffic comes from people browsing illegal content.