I had to post this reader comment from Joseph Girardi, because I thought it was interesting. I don't agree with it at all, but still is this a viewpoint that many people have about affiliate marketers? Same old shit. There are no dirty secrets. Everyone in this chain knows that the continuity, acai and teeth whitening stuff were SCAMS. Now the quiz mobile offers are flying high. This is bullshit. You should be ashamed running this garbage. Someone need to hold the mobile providers (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) accountable for profiting from this.

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  Wanted to make clear that I wasn't calling out COPEAC or accusing them of anything. The purpose of the blog post e about networks being sued was an informative post specifically to point out that there is a growing liability concern of affiliate networks who engage in creating products and just marketing them. Traditionally, affiliate networks were just putting offers, but now in order to generate more income they are more and more involved with the marketing decisions and the process. That leaves the door open for liability if something is deceptive or misleading. Again, please note that this wasn't a judgement on COPEAC or any other network, or calling them out to "change their ways" or criticize them. I personally think that most of these class-action lawsuits are bunk, anyway.

Thanks to King Zac Johnson for mentioning me in his blog, quite happy that people are reading and paying attention to the changes in the industry as a whole. After my articles, several bloggers started covering more the topic of the financial problems occurring in the industry, and the possible side effects. My articles had such an impact on the industry, that one company even started taking out email blasts in other publications to explain their defend their recent changes. I’m not going as far to claim that specific company is having issues, or that they are in financial trouble, but their situation is part of an overwhelming change in the industry. I think its important to go a little more in depth about some of the issues and discuss them – because they will affect companies even outside the affiliate game.

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With the merger of Epic (fka Azoogle) with display expert company Connexeus (fka TrafficMarketPlace), it is time to talk about something I have been looking at for a while now. The Affiliate / Performance marketing industry is about to go through a massive change that will result in major purges and consolidations in the industry. I had hoped to write this in a few weeks, in order to do some more research and wait to learn the fate of some other players, but with this announcement, it felt like a better time. The online performance and affiliate marketing industry is about to go through what will be one of the most major changes ever, with many players disappearing, going bankrupt or merging. Please read this again.

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In surprising news, it turns out that Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the famed book Rich Dad, Poor Dad isn’t a big fan of his own program. The “how to save and make money” seminar series has been one of the more successful affiliate marketing programs, and is heavily promoted on Facebook and Google. Unfortunately, according to CBC in Canada, his program is far from anything about how to make money, but how to shell out your money to the Whitney Information Network. In this video he denies any involvement with his own seminars, and says he will look into the licensing of his name.

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If you didn’t know, Yelp is being sued by two separate law firms claiming that their business is extortion. According to the complaint, one example is a veterinary hospital who claims that they contacted by a Yelp sales person to have negative reviewed removed, if they paid a few hundred dollars. This is similar to claims brought by EastBayExpress.com about a year ago, that claimed that this was part of their business model – selling positive reviews for a few hundred dollars or removing negative ones for the same.

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Colorado House Bill 1193 was introduced this week, proposing a tax on “affiliate sales.” The target goes beyond normal state consumer tax proposals put out in the last year by various States and makes a demand on businesses that uses distributed advertising mechanisms to pay sales taxes on Colorado sales. According to the bill, any business that has over $10,000 in sales from Colorado citizens through any type of affiliate, CPA or direct response system shall be “deemed to be doing business in this state.”

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