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Something similar happened to my wife as an Amazon affiliate. It took quite a while to piece together, but after about 4 or 5 back and forths, we figured out wh

Something similar happened to my wife as an Amazon affiliate. It took quite a while to piece together, but after about 4 or 5 back and forths, we figured out what happened. Someone had clicked on her affiliate link, then copy and pasted it onto reddit to share the Amazon product with some people (without knowing it had the affiliate link as ?tag=....). Because reddit is a site you are not allowed to share affiliate links, Amazon suspended the account. The person who had shared the link was obviously even a legitimate reddit user, and the post was pretty minor only getting a few upvotes (we only found it via a search). But because of this, Amazon suspended over $500 of earnings, and killed a site that took many months to build and establish. And now my wife is now on a "refuse to respond" to list for trying to contact them multiple times to get someone who can apply a little bit of reason to the situation. I think in hindsight we made the mistake of not trying to publicize the issue and Amazon could just ignore it. So here's an upvote for the OP

ominous 10y ago
So... sharing affiliate links on reddit will ruin the sellers account?
- majewsky 10y ago
  Devil's advocate says that this is the most effective way to target this bad policy. Use it to ruin the accounts of a few very big sellers, and have them do the publicity work for you.
  - colinbartlett 10y ago
    I would like to see what happen when someone like The Wirecutter, owned by The New York Times, has one of its affiliate links shared on Reddit and then has its affiliate account shut down. They are certainly responsible for millions of dollars of Amazon revenue.
    - esrauch 10y ago
      The really big affiliates almost definitely in a separate bucket that requires a higher bar or human review to disable the account.
      - Harkins 10y ago
        Bless your heart.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Not the seller but the affiliate, surely?
- lulzman206 10y ago
  Sucks that Amazon doesn't take the approach that a lot of APIs do my letting one restrict key usage based on referrers. So like an affiliate should be able to say "This affiliate code should only try to credit my account if the referrer is for example.com"
ceejayoz 10y ago
> Because reddit is a site you are not allowed to share affiliate links, Amazon suspended the account. Wait, really? I see "buy this poster" affiliate links on Reddit ads all the time.
- pc86 10y ago
  Ads are different than posts/comments.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    I'm talking about the "pay $5 to get your normal post to show up in the featured spot" ones. I can't imagine Amazon makes any distinction there.
    - thecatspaw 10y ago
      its not a featured spot, its an ad. you set it up through their advertising platform, its not something you do as an afterthought just because you see a "promote" button on a post (which afaik doesnt exist)
      - ceejayoz 10y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4upf11/new_ad_type_promoted_user_posts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4upf11/new_a... > This will essentially let an advertiser identify an organic post that they find especially relevant to their brand or product, and promote that in the Sponsored unit you guys are already used to.
dandare 10y ago
How about fighting fire with fire? Write a script that copies all affiliate links it can find to reddit until the damage is so big they will have to take note and fix the process for everyone.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  And screw over countless innocent bystanders in the process?
  - dlss 10y ago
    I think GP believes that if too many people are effected by a dumb policy the policy will be revoked (perhaps true)... if this is the case no one would be screwed over.
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      If you run a business through Amazon or rely on the money generated by these links, then you're in a very dire position if your account gets suspended until Amazon fixes the issue. How would you feel if someone had a gripe with your cellphone provider or bank and got your accounts suspended until their issue was resolved? How would that impact your life? What if it took weeks or months to resolve?
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        You can't innocently be part of someone else's bad actions. Amazon is doing bad things to the market and wantonly destroying lives. It's their choice to align with an entity seeking monopoly control of a market, and using their status to arbitrarily ruin lives. These people are materially supporting that entity, so they're fair game for fallout from retaliation.
        jhayward 10y ago
        No, no, wrong. Just because someone lives in a firetrap doesn't mean you can set their house on fire while they're sleeping. Your position is completely amoral, evil.
captainmuon 10y ago
Huh, strange. I was convinced it was Reddit banning affiliate links, not Amazon. There probably goes my passive income idea: Make blogs where I present merchandizing for fandoms and other niches, and promote the blogs on Reddit. :-) I wonder if the indirection makes it "legal".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- unknownsavage 10y ago
  I think it's against Amazon's policy because it's against reddit's. Either way, I hold Amazon 100% fault. When you go to an affiliate link, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/KONG-Cozie-Marvin-Moose-Medium/dp/B005AP3B8S?tag=foo-20 https://www.amazon.com/KONG-Cozie-Marvin-Moose-Medium/dp/B00... They don't do a redirect or use pushState to remove the "tag" part, so it's completely expected that people might copy and paste the URL to share. And that's even without the person acting maliciously, god help you if someone wants to kill your affiliate account. All attempts to contacted them ended in a dead end of "sorry, abuses are handled by a special team who can not be directly contacted". And when we finally got the abuse team to respond, the most they ever did was confirmed the affiliate link was posted on reddit. And we have in writing them saying that a single instance of someone posting the link on reddit is grounds for your account suspension, even if that wasn't you. I really regret now not making a big deal about it, and writing a shaming blog. But at the time I just wanted my wife to move on and focus on something more productive. It was a huge emotional blow to her, as the site was something she was very proud of and something she did on her source of money (As a family we are financially fine, but having her own little stream of money she could use on random silly/unnecessary purchases made her feel a lot better).
legohead 10y ago
That's wierd.. back when I was doing amazon affiliate I posted a lot on Reddit. I'd find threads about products and post a link to the product using my affiliate code. It worked "okay" - I made a lot more doing other things. Is this a recent change, in the last year or so?
dalore 10y ago
You are allowed to share affiliate links on reddit. Well on some subreddits you could. It's all up to the subreddit. And even if reddit banned the link, that's nothing to do with Amazon. Amazon don't enforce reddit policies.
- gipp 10y ago
  You've got it the wrong way round. Amazon doesn't allow you to post your affiliate links on sites you don't control.
  - dalore 10y ago
    Ah yes, I remember and forgot that change. Stopped being an affiliate many years ago.
serge2k 10y ago
email Jeff.

ominous 10y ago

So... sharing affiliate links on reddit will ruin the sellers account?

majewsky 10y ago
Devil's advocate says that this is the most effective way to target this bad policy. Use it to ruin the accounts of a few very big sellers, and have them do the publicity work for you.
- colinbartlett 10y ago
  I would like to see what happen when someone like The Wirecutter, owned by The New York Times, has one of its affiliate links shared on Reddit and then has its affiliate account shut down. They are certainly responsible for millions of dollars of Amazon revenue.
  - esrauch 10y ago
    The really big affiliates almost definitely in a separate bucket that requires a higher bar or human review to disable the account.
    - Harkins 10y ago
      Bless your heart.
pjc50 10y ago
Not the seller but the affiliate, surely?
lulzman206 10y ago
Sucks that Amazon doesn't take the approach that a lot of APIs do my letting one restrict key usage based on referrers. So like an affiliate should be able to say "This affiliate code should only try to credit my account if the referrer is for example.com"

ceejayoz 10y ago

> Because reddit is a site you are not allowed to share affiliate links, Amazon suspended the account. Wait, really? I see "buy this poster" affiliate links on Reddit ads all the time.

pc86 10y ago
Ads are different than posts/comments.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  I'm talking about the "pay $5 to get your normal post to show up in the featured spot" ones. I can't imagine Amazon makes any distinction there.
  - thecatspaw 10y ago
    its not a featured spot, its an ad. you set it up through their advertising platform, its not something you do as an afterthought just because you see a "promote" button on a post (which afaik doesnt exist)
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4upf11/new_ad_type_promoted_user_posts/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4upf11/new_a... > This will essentially let an advertiser identify an organic post that they find especially relevant to their brand or product, and promote that in the Sponsored unit you guys are already used to.

dandare 10y ago

How about fighting fire with fire? Write a script that copies all affiliate links it can find to reddit until the damage is so big they will have to take note and fix the process for everyone.

cptskippy 10y ago
And screw over countless innocent bystanders in the process?
- dlss 10y ago
  I think GP believes that if too many people are effected by a dumb policy the policy will be revoked (perhaps true)... if this is the case no one would be screwed over.
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    If you run a business through Amazon or rely on the money generated by these links, then you're in a very dire position if your account gets suspended until Amazon fixes the issue. How would you feel if someone had a gripe with your cellphone provider or bank and got your accounts suspended until their issue was resolved? How would that impact your life? What if it took weeks or months to resolve?
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      You can't innocently be part of someone else's bad actions. Amazon is doing bad things to the market and wantonly destroying lives. It's their choice to align with an entity seeking monopoly control of a market, and using their status to arbitrarily ruin lives. These people are materially supporting that entity, so they're fair game for fallout from retaliation.
      - jhayward 10y ago
        No, no, wrong. Just because someone lives in a firetrap doesn't mean you can set their house on fire while they're sleeping. Your position is completely amoral, evil.

captainmuon 10y ago

Huh, strange. I was convinced it was Reddit banning affiliate links, not Amazon. There probably goes my passive income idea: Make blogs where I present merchandizing for fandoms and other niches, and promote the blogs on Reddit. :-) I wonder if the indirection makes it "legal".

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
unknownsavage 10y ago
I think it's against Amazon's policy because it's against reddit's. Either way, I hold Amazon 100% fault. When you go to an affiliate link, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/KONG-Cozie-Marvin-Moose-Medium/dp/B005AP3B8S?tag=foo-20 https://www.amazon.com/KONG-Cozie-Marvin-Moose-Medium/dp/B00... They don't do a redirect or use pushState to remove the "tag" part, so it's completely expected that people might copy and paste the URL to share. And that's even without the person acting maliciously, god help you if someone wants to kill your affiliate account. All attempts to contacted them ended in a dead end of "sorry, abuses are handled by a special team who can not be directly contacted". And when we finally got the abuse team to respond, the most they ever did was confirmed the affiliate link was posted on reddit. And we have in writing them saying that a single instance of someone posting the link on reddit is grounds for your account suspension, even if that wasn't you. I really regret now not making a big deal about it, and writing a shaming blog. But at the time I just wanted my wife to move on and focus on something more productive. It was a huge emotional blow to her, as the site was something she was very proud of and something she did on her source of money (As a family we are financially fine, but having her own little stream of money she could use on random silly/unnecessary purchases made her feel a lot better).

legohead 10y ago

That's wierd.. back when I was doing amazon affiliate I posted a lot on Reddit. I'd find threads about products and post a link to the product using my affiliate code. It worked "okay" - I made a lot more doing other things. Is this a recent change, in the last year or so?

dalore 10y ago

You are allowed to share affiliate links on reddit. Well on some subreddits you could. It's all up to the subreddit. And even if reddit banned the link, that's nothing to do with Amazon. Amazon don't enforce reddit policies.

gipp 10y ago
You've got it the wrong way round. Amazon doesn't allow you to post your affiliate links on sites you don't control.
- dalore 10y ago
  Ah yes, I remember and forgot that change. Stopped being an affiliate many years ago.

serge2k 10y ago

email Jeff.