" Sometimes the right hand doesn't really want to know what the left hand is doing." I agree. There's a level of plausible deniability with using affiliates.

" Sometimes the right hand doesn't really want to know what the left hand is doing." I agree. There's a level of plausible deniability with using affiliates. They can resort to some black-hat tactics and when they are caught, you can claim you didn't know, and ban them. "Google takes huge, huge amounts of money from advertisers whose hands are less than clean." I agree with this, while noting that almost all ad networks do. No one wants to admit it, but a lot of the internet was built on rebills and affiliate ads. Now Google is bigger and has some large clients to keep happy, so they push back harder on scams as they crop up. But as long as rebills exist, Google and others are stuck playing "whack-a-mole" with the latest flavor of rebill. The latest FTC moves have put some pressure on affiliates, but it's just a matter of time before they come up with something else.