Affiliate Window Code of conduct

[sgpratley]

I logged into my account this morning and found a new set of T&C's which AW are asking aff's to sign up to before 31st July. I've only skim read them so far but have a few comments & questions

Overall I applaud the attempts at transparency and honesty, however there are a couple of clauses which are too vague to feel comfortable with them, and a very short timescale to agree to the document.

e.g. cluse 3.6

The Affiliate agrees to provide DWL accurate, complete and non-misleading
information regarding the Affiliate’s identity and practices.

Does that mean I am now obliged to divulge where all the traffic to my site comes from?

I'm just concerned at how specific that is. Is just the method (I do PPC) or the specifics (I do PPC via MSN on exact-match product names and typos for the following products).

Combine that with 9.1.2

9.1 The following information may be posted on the Service Website:
...
9.1.2 any information (other than information expressly marked as being
confidential) that is disclosed by the Affiliate to DWL.

Basically means that the entire detail of an affiliate's business can be handed to a merchant.

Also 3.10

The Affiliate agrees not to disrupt the Service by hard coding any banners or
buttons which the Merchants may make available to the Affiliate. Any breach
of this clause 3.10 will:
3.10.1 lead to Visitors receiving inaccurate information and the Service consequently
being brought into disrepute;

For those that remember the CJ javascript links debate of a while back there are a number of reasons why this will cause problems for some affiliates

1) A huge upheaval in changing creative (particularly basic buttons & logos) which may already be hard coded
2)Not wishing to show search engines the connection with AW by serving external images
3)Wanting our own servers to be the last point of failure
4) Not wanting sites to look like picadilly circus because some merchants haven't provided a basic static logo in the size required


-Will there be an equivalent set for merchants - e.g. making sure that their own creative and content is up-to-date, that transactions are approved in a timely manner and that regular checks of the tracking are made? I'm sure I could think of more :-)

-The deadline for acceptance is very short, particularly given that we are now in the holiday months, any comment on why this is this?

I just wondered what other people thought of them too?

[rm94531]

1. These T&Cs appear unreasonable.

2. The timeframe for review and acceptance, or otherwise, of these T&Cs is unreasonable.

[toast8172]

Where did you find these terms? I have just logging into AW and can see no mention of any new T & C's, did you get an email about them?

Cheers
Paul

[sgpratley]

Dirty great popup when I logged in. I was wondering why this thread had stayed so quiet!

Changes to Affiliate Terms and Conditions

We apologise for this brief interruption to the login process. Please take a moment to read the following statement and review the new affiliate terms of business.

Over the past few months Affiliate Window has been working on a revised version of the affiliate terms and conditions. The purpose of this exercise was to create something that better assisted us in tackling internet fraud and the unethical practices carried out by a minority, but nevertheless troublesome, group of affiliates.

The primary addition to the contract is the Affiliate Window Code of Conduct. This has been drafted in conjunction with our legal team and Ben Edelman (Ben Edelman - Home) who is a specialist in internet fraud and also a qualified lawyer.

The Code of Conduct covers two main areas:

1. The content of the affiliate website
2. Manipulation of the service

Once you have read and understood the new contract, you can either accept, defer or reject it by pressing the appropriate button below.

To review the terms and conditions, please click here.

I've decided not to post the link to the actual document for now in case this wasn't actually ready for general consumption.

[toast8172]

Not seeing that, although I am showing an error on the page

[MattSweet]

Just come back off holiday to login and find this message popup too.

Not having patience for legals, the first thing I did was bob on here to see the reaction. Obviously it's pretty new and not everyone has logged in to see it yet.

My initial thoughts are that 31st of July to accept seems a bit soon bearing in mind no warning was given - I apologise if there was and I've missed it. There also appear to be some dubious clauses in there that not everyone will be happy with - Quidco for example....

However, I'll have a better look tomorrow when I'm not falling asleep...

[grobinso]

Not seeing that, although I am showing an error on the page

Try logging in through another browser, Internet Explorer threw up an error when i just tried to log in tonight, couldnt even read the AW message because of the IE error message. Logged in with Firefox and at least i can read the notice, just deferred it for now.

Graham

[Andrew Starr]

I'm not seeing any new T&C's popup message at all.

Strange how some are seeing this and others are not

[tbp]

I haven't seen this either for some reason, even logged in specifically to have a look but can't get to it.

[Richard101]

I haven't seen this either for some reason, even logged in specifically to have a look but can't get to it.

I got the message when I logged in but IE aborted rendering of message - note that antiphishing from symantec was switched off. When I rebooted computer to kick fraud monitoring on and then logged back in to AW there was no T&C message

[babrees]

The Affiliate agrees not to disrupt the Service by hard coding any banners or
buttons which the Merchants may make available to the Affiliate. Any breach
of this clause 3.10 will:
3.10.1 lead to Visitors receiving inaccurate information and the Service consequently
being brought into disrepute;

For those that remember the CJ javascript links debate of a while back there are a number of reasons why this will cause problems for some affiliates

1) A huge upheaval in changing creative (particularly basic buttons & logos) which may already be hard coded
2)Not wishing to show search engines the connection with AW by serving external images
3)Wanting our own servers to be the last point of failure
4) Not wanting sites to look like picadilly circus because some merchants haven't provided a basic static logo in the size required

I thought that was only referring to hardcoding banners supplied by the merchant - that we could still make up our own ??

Just realised that this clause will affect my affilistore sites that I use an 88x31 banner with, as the script requires you to upload the image.

[Donk]

11.4 The Affiliate covenants to DWL that for the six months following the
termination of this Agreement, the Affiliate will not have any commercial
dealings with any Merchant which the Affiliate has been introduced to via the
Service.

How does that effect merchants that use two or more networks or merchants that move from affiliate window to a new network?

Just an aside the link to the T&Cs on their website still shows the old T&C and there is no link to the new ones.

Bob

[adamski]

Dear all

Before anyone reads too much into this let me clarify a few points first:

1. This was always intended to be implemented and has nothing to do with the current Quidco situation and will not affect our current dealings with Quidco
   
   
2. Traditionally T&C’s can be updated without prior consent from affiliates, this was written into our original T&C’s and probably most other networks too. However along this journey for transparency we felt it fair to highlight the changes to affiliates and give them the opportunity to accept, reject or question the changes. This has obviously worked but I don’t want affiliates to see that having an option and extended time frame is somehow retrograde.
   
   
3. Ultimately these changes are meant to benefit genuine affiliates by allowing the network greater latitude to investigate questionable activity. Obviously if this is of a competitively sensitive nature it will go no further than the investigating team. However in 99% of questionable cases, further investigation has unearthed non approved network means for securing traffic/sales. We have no reason to delay, harass, restrict our affiliates, we merely need to safe guard all parties interests through clarity and the ability to request more information to obtain this clarity in a handful of cases.
   
   
4. We have been running our protection systems for some time now and it’s fair to say that if you haven’t had a call questioning politely the source of your traffic from AWin then it’s very likely that will continue to be the case.

We created these new T&Cs in response to a recent rise in spyware, adware and associated unethical affiliate practices. It is a crucial part of our armoury in the fight against this and ultimately ensures we uphold the good name of the vast majority of the affiliate community.

The language used is quite forthright but is designed to assist us when dealing with unfortunate, acrimonious situations that arise when unethical activity is discovered.

e.g. cluse 3.6

Quote:
The Affiliate agrees to provide DWL accurate, complete and non-misleading
information regarding the Affiliate’s identity and practices.
Does that mean I am now obliged to divulge where all the traffic to my site comes from?

I'm just concerned at how specific that is. Is just the method (I do PPC) or the specifics (I do PPC via MSN on exact-match product names and typos for the following products).

We do not expect affiliates to supply each and every site they use or detailed, specific methods by which they get traffic to those sites however, should we discover anything unusual or suspicious with our monitoring software, we need to be in a position where we can legally request this and confidentially investigate.

Combine that with 9.1.2
Quote:
9.1 The following information may be posted on the Service Website:
...
9.1.2 any information (other than information expressly marked as being
confidential) that is disclosed by the Affiliate to DWL.
Basically means that the entire detail of an affiliate's business can be handed to a merchant.

In the same way merchants populate information pages explaining how their business works, we feel affiliates should have the same opportunity. What an affiliate adds to our system will be presented to merchants but this is only in the interests of building stronger, more transparent relationships, not to weaken them. As a network it aids all parties to offer a certain level of transparency but just as merchants have information which they consider competitively confidential we know affiliates will feel the same. If an affiliate would like us to keep something confidential, naturally we are more than happy to do this but rest assured competitively advantageous information will remain your own.

Also 3.10
Quote:
The Affiliate agrees not to disrupt the Service by hard coding any banners or
buttons which the Merchants may make available to the Affiliate. Any breach
of this clause 3.10 will:
3.10.1 lead to Visitors receiving inaccurate information and the Service consequently
being brought into disrepute;
For those that remember the CJ javascript links debate of a while back there are a number of reasons why this will cause problems for some affiliates

1) A huge upheaval in changing creative (particularly basic buttons & logos) which may already be hard coded
2)Not wishing to show search engines the connection with AW by serving external images
3)Wanting our own servers to be the last point of failure
4) Not wanting sites to look like picadilly circus because some merchants haven't provided a basic static logo in the size required

The reason for the hard coding clause is to avoid inaccurate information being presented to consumers. This is of particular importance on finance programmes where, for example, APR information must be accurate at all times in accordance with FSA regulation. In conjunction merchants like the ability to change a banner creative knowing it will update for all linked affiliates.

We understand it is not always possible to use what is available in the system and would ask affiliates to contact the relevant merchant account manager at Affiliate Window for a resolution or to supply the necessary creative size. This point has always been present in our affiliate T&C’s.

-Will there be an equivalent set for merchants - e.g. making sure that their own creative and content is up-to-date, that transactions are approved in a timely manner and that regular checks of the tracking are made? I'm sure I could think of more :-)

It’s the main reason we designed and implemented the AWin Index. A merchant code of conduct does exist but as there are fewer merchants than affiliates it is dealt with on a 1 to 1 approach. Affiliate Window run monthly training seminars for all our clients in which many issues surrounding best practice are discussed including the ones mentioned. If you would like to view and present at a future seminar please feel free to contact me and I will put you in contact with the relevant department.

-The deadline for acceptance is very short, particularly given that we are now in the holiday months, any comment on why this is this?

As explained previously over the years we have regularly updated our T&Cs without the need to notify affiliates. (Our legal team inform us we are entitled to do this and do not require active acceptance from affiliates).

Nevertheless, we prefer to adopt a more open approach and felt the changes were worth sharing with you all as they offer affiliates who operate legally, peace of mind. Affiliates who manipulate the service don’t just affect merchants, they damage the entire industry and in a lot of cases hijack quality affiliate traffic.

The deadline is simply because we considered three days to be ample time for affiliates to review it without it being neglected or ignored. We even added the function to defer acceptance if affiliates needed to access the account urgently for other reasons.

Whilst we understand the language cannot be vague, may at times appear harsh and the demands placed on affiliates quite severe. We anticipate only having to enforce these in a minority of cases and during difficult circumstances. They will not affect the vast majority of you.

Finally, thanks Stephen for originally posting this, we didn’t think it would cause such a stir but this is where the forum comes into its own allowing the questions and answers that serve a much wider audience. Hopefully this reply will go some way to allaying any fears, however should anyone have any objections, I am more than happy to discuss these with you over the phone or by email.

[adamski]

One point I didn't address was why some of you have seen this and others have not.

This seems to a problem with Internet Explorer and our developers are working on it as I type.

Adam

[tbp]

Thanks Adam,

One thing worries me, in that the deadline for agreeing to th terms is tomorrow I believe. What happens if I can't see the terms and conditions before then, meaning I can't agree to them? Don't want to get cut off or similar.