Removal of Myvouchercodes from Play.com

[loquax]

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Just out of interest

Blushing Buyer was censored for naming the affiliate on their PPC thread... should the same rules apply in this case?

(and I do apologise now if my opinion differs from anyone else in AM - sorry, didn't realise that wasn't allowed - forgive me).

Jason

[hpops]

not been a good day for you has it Jason!

Aren't Merchants named and shamed DAILY on here for carrying out actions which the community disagree with.

Whats the difference between saying "Merchant X has been dropped from my site because they haven't paid my commission" and saying "affiliate Y has been dropped from our program because they aren't following Ts and Cs"?

Really, what is the difference.

[BFG 9000]

I think from my days studying contract law that Play has left themselves open to legal action from Mark for breach of the implied terms of privacy to contract, and the public display here is in clear breach from Play and arguably indirectly the network that represents Play and MVC.

I can see your point, but would the contract still stand after the terms had already been broken by Mark?

[bapages]

I can see your point, but would the contract still stand after the terms had already been broken by Mark?

Yes as this breach id a differing one to terms broken and unrelated in law, but Play could use it a lever a counter case, but I am not sure if MVC has actually broken terms by displaying out of date codes.

[bapages]

I would also like to add that I am quite dissapointed in the Mods to allow this thread to continue or even get published. I see that Play.com agent was trying to be seen to do something ethical on the voucher debate and made an error naming an advertiser, for which I am sure they now regret

[DavidCartlidge]

Or.....

I would like to add that I am quite happy with the Mods to allow this thread to continue and get published. I see that Play.com agent was trying to be seen to do something ethical on the voucher debate and made the correct choice in naming an advertiser, for which I am sure they now see was the right thing to do.

[nerius]

Regardless of all legal / moral issues on the naming and shaming, I can't see too many affiliates shedding a tear for MVC on this one... And thank god for Play doing it - from both an affiliate and consumer perspective.

Wonder if MVC will keep Play on the site regardless of whether they have an aff link - like they do regardless of whether there's a voucher code?

[dougs]

MVC normally change the link to a competitor....now what is the legallity on that?

Doug

[Barry]

No he has removed the listing altogether, which is unusual. Is he running scared? or biding his time?

I think the later. Normally any merchant that doesnt have an aff link has valueclick ads on, this is the first page I know of thats been removed.

Ta

Baz

[aotagain]

If I had a large pure content site with numerous pages, each with a spam of links on to drop cookies for merchants with lots of offers of 'click here to get something nice from this merchant', when the merchants weren't offering anything nice...

I would expect to get a personal visit, let alone a forum post.

I think that breaks the terms of quite a few merchants, in which case so called 'contracts' are neither here nor there surely. A voucher code site of that size can have great leverage over merchants and it takes someone like Play to move the goalposts properly.

The networks don't really have an incentive to do so and that's fair enough.

Crikey, as someone said merchants are named frequently, often by someone who is just missing a relatively small bit of commission.

[ian-d]

Irrespective of all the if's and but's, the good news is that MVC has been removed from promoting an high profile merchant, and let's hope many more follow.

[notabene]

Totally agree with a naming and shaming approach after due warnings - bravo Play.com!

Also can't wait till the whole 'bogus' voucher code arena is wiped off the planet - its the cancer of affiliate marketing...

NB

[futureweb]

LOL this is great

Shame on you myvouchercodes.com - do I care nope ! he's making shed loads and good luck to the fella, is he doing anything wrong? Nope I don't think so - Play.com I bet he's made you a pretty penny too - What's all the fuss about? beats me, but it's entertaining watching everyone trying to have their say without offending anyone.

At the end of the day merchants wanna sell stuff and we want to make money driving traffic - myvouchercodes drives traffic, merchants sell more end of, all this rubbish about voucher code sites taking traffic from content affiliates is just that, don't we all try to better each other be it ppc or seo - it's war people wake up and smell the coffee

2 ways round it as far as I can see:

1). Reward great affiliates like me with exclusive voucher codes

2). Put the voucher codes in the product feeds for all, making them easy to manage, product specific codes don't get dropped in with wrong products avoiding user rage, affiliates using datafeeds can quickly eliminate the need for their users to search on a dedicated voucher code site and the worlds at peace.


Disclamer:

This 10pence worth was written after several pints of kaliber, I won’t remember in the morning, I will probably regret it and if you ask me about it later on I will most likely blame someone else .

[ian-d]

At the end of the day merchants wanna sell stuff and we want to make money driving traffic - myvouchercodes drives traffic, merchants sell more end of, all this rubbish about voucher code sites taking traffic from content affiliates is just that, don't we all try to better each other be it ppc or seo - it's war people wake up and smell the coffee

That's not the point being argued, as from that stand point, no discount code site is different. The point being raised is MVC's tactics of driving traffic to a merchant on the pretense of discount codes that don't actually exist, which is naughty. Yes fair enough others do it, not just MVC, but given the sites high profile, they should be setting an example of all to follow, but don't, and constantly break the rules. I think more merchants should stand up, swallow their pride and profits, and remove them, giving genuine affiliates offering consumers VALUE a chance to earn commissions.

[mattg]

So Play want it on the public record that they're not working with MyVoucherCodes any more.

What's the problem with that?

I can see sound commercial reasons for making it public - perhaps they visibly want to be seen to take action when they see a problem, or perhaps they feel MVC's dominance is likely to be discouraging other affiliates from investing in working with Play and they want to stop that.