Here I go…  I’m guest blogging here on AffSpot.  Why you ask?  Because I was reading the NY Times on Monday about the lawsuit where Amazon is basically telling the State of North Carolina that they’re scumbags and to go home and feed your dogs (or whatever NC Legislators and Regulators do in their free time).

But in following the article (Which is linked right here for those of you that can’t Google) I started seeing possibilities that only those of use that do Performance Marketing would see….   Evil, pure unadulterated greed at a level that would make the scumbag “Internet Marketing Gurus” among us green with envy.

It’s NOT About Sales Taxes!

North Carolina doesn’t care as much about collecting sales tax as they are about getting your personal data.

As Shakespeare once said…  “I think she doth protest too much“.  And in reading the NYT article the North Carolina official trying to get at Amazon protested loud and hard about how they don’t want an excess of data.  That they don’t want to know if you bought books, food, toys, or electronics…  Just how much money you spent and who you are.

But this is a red herring.  There are different sales tax rates depending upon what you buy under North Carolina Law (like medications, food, and cars all being at different rates).  Which means they do need to know what you buy (at least what types of items you bought) in order to collect sales taxes on your Amazon purchases.

Now what could a marketer with that type of data do?  Why, they could use it to market their products to you?  And what do States do with information like your name, address, driving record, proof of insurance info, what kind of car you drive information?  Like Phineus says to Ferb…  “Wait for it”….

THEY SELL IT!  TO WHOEVER WILL PAY ENOUGH FOR IT!

That’s right…  How does that Dodge dealer know you have an older Ford pickup?  Just how convenient is it that that mailer from Progressive arrives the very week your State Farm policy is due to expire?  They arn’t just guessing, they know.  They bought that information from the State you live in.  And they use it to market to you.  Are these companies evil?  Well, they may be but not because they use the data.  Or even that they bought the data.  It’s your very own State Government out there selling your personal information to the highest bidder!  Now that’s evil.

And this is why I think North Carolina is going to end up being a landmark case.  Amazon can’t afford to have Barnes and Nobel pounding you with offers for books.  Well, they do already…  But what if glimmers of exactly who Amazon’s customers are in North Carolina can be bought by Barnes and Nobel?  That would be a great move for the big B&N and a huge loser for Amazon.

Which Means Amazon is Protecting Your Personal Information!

A great many people (including me) have been scratching our heads wondering just why Amazon digs its heels in so hard to not collect sales taxes for various states.  And in reality I think they don’t care that much about collecting those sales taxes.  It’s about what they know the States will do with the information.  They’ll sell it to their competitors.  Now that’s scumbag behavior if I’ve ever seen it.

It Makes Affiliate Marketing More Difficult

And if North Carolina can (by hook or by crook) force Amazon to give up their data?  Affiliate Marketing is going to get a whole lot more difficult for all of us. Because some of the larger retailers will be buying personal purchase history information from your very State Government and using it to gain a marketing advantage on you.  And unless your an affiliate marketer with a ton of bucks your not going to be able to afford to buy this data from your own government.

The Government of North Carolina are acting like devious little scumbags who want to harvest your personal purchase history data (that they obtain under the guise of collecting sales taxes) and then sell it to the highest bidder.  This is what I think.  It’s my opinion.  And I hope that those of you in North Carolina will do what the Affiliate Marketers in Colorado, etc. did and put the pressure on to change that stupid excuse of a sales tax law in your state (if you want to remain an affiliate marketer, that is).  Your own state may end up enabling your competitors to drive you out of business.

I’m Just Sayin…….

Doug52 is a regular contributor to the AffSpot Performance Marketing Affiliate Forum, a self described curmudgeon, and Affiliate Marketer who lives in (his words) “The House that the Trophy Wife Built”.

Amazon is doing the unthinkable over in the UK right now. Remember PPC going away in the US a few months ago? Well now they’re doing it in the UK and it does not bode well for US Affiliates (This Means You)!

In an article at SearchEngineLand they’ve quoted the UK Amazon letter ending PPC for Affiliates. And an additional paragraph has been added. Here it is:

In addition, as of February 1, 2010 we will no longer pay referral fees on purchases made by customers who are referred to www.amazon.co.uk or www.javari.co.uk via Free Search Results. Free Search Results are links containing an Associate’s tag displayed in a search engine’s free, natural, or organic search results in response to a search query which send customers directly to an Amazon site without the customer first being sent to an Associate’s site and the customer clicking on a link to arrive at the Amazon site.

So, you’ve built out sites with quality content, even localized in many cases, did some decent SEO, have your newsletter going out, etc. Things are pretty nice now that your site is on the first page of Google, Yahoo, etc. And the link to a specific product on your site that sets your tracking and takes a customer to Amazon happens to show up on that search term. You’d think that was good. You’d think that your hard work and smart execution of your plan would bring you a commission.

You’d think that since your efforts brought Amazon that sale you’d get paid for it. But no.. Not if it’s after Feb1 in the UK. And don’t think it won’t start happenning here as well. I’m not a huge predictor of specific things but this is starting to fall into a disturbing trend. PPC is being penalized by Amazon (among others). Google is slapping affiliate links in PPC as well. Ebay is now judging your sites for “quality”. And now Amazon UK is penalizing your organic search results (if it’s an affiliate link). And as everyone knows… link cloaking isn’t exactly an accepted practice among a majority of networks and merchants.

I have a good idea that this will become a hot topic at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas this weekend. And for good cause. I do believe that everyone is going to be scrambling to figure out how to preserve their earned affiliate commissions that are the result of a natural search. The other thing I know is that whoever cracks the code and figures out where all these moves lead is going to be a huge superaffiliate in 2011.