That’s for sure. Thanks for stopping by everyone. Brian, again, thanks for the tip.

Right, but who do affiliates represent? Companies who sell things. Both the principal and the affiliate are liable for deceptive advertising.

I think your advice “to do the right thing” sounds good to most of us out here. But we know that golden rule if often trampled all over, especially when there’s big money involved.

We may well see over-zealous bloggers making it their mission in life to “out” deceptive affiliate marketers. And can we be sure that a competitor is not going to decide to become an FTC informant?

It’s a crazy world we play in. :)

I still don’t see this as enforcable in any way. However, it’s a simple reminder to “do the right thing”. :)

And it’s not going to slow down the affiliate marketing business one bit.

I just wanted to come here and point out to all the probloggers out there that the need for alarm is in my opinion not warranted. Unless you’re writing content that is made to fool people, keep doing what you’re doing and let’s let this play out. Nobody is going to jail for affiliate marketing is what I’m trying to say. :)

Perhaps theissue is for people, or blogs, who do it unintentionally — and don’t disclose who or what they’re doing, but merely act like another “informative site”.

For those cases, its probably very easy to stick a disclaimer on the top of things … but again, I wonder if it will make a difference at all to the bottom line.

I know you’re opinion of “its better” … and I hope its better, but I’ve yet to see any “marketing experiments” on this (and I hope to, one day, at marketingexperiments.com) to establish anything one way or the other.

Cheers
t

I think we’ll know more in 24 hours, but for right now, I’m just trying to stop the end of affiliate marketing meme from spreading. It just ain’t gonna happen people! :)

Word of mouth is exactly how Amazon conceived its Associates affiliate program; and as you well know, there are hundreds of thousands of sites that are written with good content, some are even reviews, but seeded with tons of affiliate links. Heck, you know Rosalind Gardiner’s story probably better than most as well.

Check out Bryan Clark’s thoughts as a (former?) lawyer who has gone up against the FTC once or thrice: Affiliate marketing is a potential target for this kind of FTC opinion (http://www.copyblogger.com/affiliate-marketing-disclosure-now-required-by-law/)

Perhaps the more practical issue is — does the FTC have the resources to police the web on this issue? Probably not.

Does this translate into the smaller fish not having to worry? Probably — but if it ever does translate into actual law / legislation, it might put enough of a fear into smaller affiliates to make a real dent in the affiliate marketing industry.

Cheers
tony