Web developer Christopher Kennedy has been charged with cheating eBay out of tens of thousands of dollars via a "cookie-stuffing" program called saucekit. Kennedy faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

"[The] program deposited a cookie on end users' hard drives that contained a unique code identifying affiliate websites even though advertisements from those sites were never viewed, according to documents filed Tuesday in US District Court in San Jose, California," writes The Register's Dan Goodin. "Users who went on to take 'revenue actions' on eBay would cause the affiliate to receive a referral fee it was not entitled to."

"The cookie-stuffing program exploited the eBay Partner Network, which pays referral fees to websites when one of their advertisements leads to a sale on the online auctioneer's site," Goodin writes.

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