Sorry for asking silly questions but I'm a genuine noob when it comes to this thing. How do I tell whether an IP address is a spy or not?
I've tried to request Beyond Hosting to install Maxmind GeoIP for me but they told me that I could use htaccess file to redirect specific IP's to specific sites.
They told me that I could save the trouble of writing a php script to detect and redirect, if I only have a few IP addresses that I am weary of.
The bottom line is you can slow people down but there is no real way to hide your creatives if you do enough volume.
I suggest focusing on scaling / creating new campaigns instead of trying to figure out how to hide ( b/c 99% of the time it won't stop a tenacious affiliate ).
I agree - ignore protecting yourself from spies for now.
Your creatives are out in the wild for all to see anyway, so the other party has the advantage from the beginning.
The truth is that virtually no one will be interested in your campaigns unless you are doing well. At which point you may have the $$ and experience to address this properly.
Every step taking towards hidding your campaigns from competition is step taken backward from affiliate mindset.