DISQUS

Great write up, Loren. In addition to the immediate lost income, this law would have a future chilling effect on the affiliate marketplace in California, which has produced some great affiliate-related companies.

To echo Loren's comments, this bill is damaging because it uses an unfair, legally-dubious claim to establish nexus for out of state retailers. The retailers that do not want to be burdened with collecting taxes for states in which they have no actual presence can simply sever their relationships with affiliates, thus costing affiliates income. This is what happened in New York. Affiliate marketing is a form of advertising.

I think the weakest affiliate and non-affiliate sites have long since had poor SERPs. This will be an interesting thing to watch. This is a slight step in the direction of "quality variety" with different results for different people or at different times.

"Instead of making the case that affiliates are being treated unfairly, I think our best bet as an industry is to make the case to state governments that this is an economically short minded tactic."

Sam, this is a great point and the damage this could do goes well beyond affiliate marketing. We should have an industry organization to combat this.

When I was reviewing CPA Networks a couple weeks ago I found some that go back to 2004.

And congratulations to affiliate marketing! This bodes well for the health of our marketplace.

Wow! Big news! Congratulations to Malcolm and the rest of buy.at!

Great pictures, guys!