ClickZ: Regulating Chaos, Part 3: Adware, Merchants, and Affiliates Speak Out
The opposing camps in the regulation debate are affiliates and adware companies, with merchants and affiliate networks caught in the middle. Affiliates continue to attack all forms of adware and seem unwilling to compromise. There are strong compliance signals from many adware companies.
Serious affiliates are only after parasites that hijack their links and steal their commissions. It has nothing to do with ad-supported software, which is akin to launching another browser window and doing business from there, i.e. it's perfectly legitimate because it's actively triggered by the user and it's not conflicting with anybody else's referrals.
Why confuse, column after column, a situation that is perfectly clear? Hijacking click-thoughs is BAD. Got it?
And here's the really brainless quote:
No merchants replied to my requests for comments, most likely because they are in an uncomfortable middle position between affiliates and adware companies. Making their opinions known could lead to more headaches than solutions.
Merchants are not in an "uncomfortable middle position." Either they have the courage and clarity of thought to support their legitimate partners and get rid of the thugs, or they're trying to eat their lunch and have it too, and they'll end up destroying their channel out of greed and cluelessness.
Merchants are not in the middle of this, they're at one end of the business relationship, and affiliates are at the other. Legitimate adware companies are affiliates in their own right, and it's perfectly normal to have fair competition within your channel. Your partners don't expect otherwise, though of course they'll moan from time to time to try to get a better deal from you.
But refusing to acknowledge and address the scumware situation turns affiliates away from merchants who refuse to rein in. It's putting your head in the sand, poisoning the well, put your own favorite saying here to express shortsightedness and lack of business leadership. The ability to manage channel conflicts requires ethical clarity.
