Commission Junction

How does Commission Junction (cj.com) work? I mean what's the idea behind? I know its a weird question but any help would be great.

If you could be more specific (How does it work for who? Advertiser or Publisher?). But why I think it's popular, moreso than any other affiliate network, is they combine all their merchant earnings into one check. While, with BeFree and LinkShare (And ClickXchange and ClickBank), each merchant sends you a seperate check.

I meant, how does it work for both the advertiser and the publisher? How do you get paid and stuff?

you link to cj, cj tracks and forwards, and if all goes well, you get paid. (for sale, lead, or click)