The Affiliate Summit is right around the corner and I’m sure fraud, ethics and AM best practices will be high on the hot topics list. Typo squatting, scrapers, cookie stuffers, parasites and other types of fraud are a sad fact of life in the affiliate marketing world. Considering our industry is self governed and self-policing and that affiliate marketing is still considered by many, the leading get-rich-quick destination on the World Wide Web, we aren’t doing too bad and it could be a lot worse.

Thank God there are still lots of great, honest, hard working affiliates to partner with. Some of the leading industry gurus, managers and affiliates in the country will be coming together next week to discuss the good, bad and the ugly that affects our industry. I like what Jonathan Miller at ReveNews had to say today on the subject of “Ethics in Affiliate Marketing.”

“It’s ultimately our responsibility as AM’s to ensure that we police our programs and ensure that we keep our affiliates ethical and hold them accountable for their actions. This benefits the community of law abiding affiliates and enables us to build a trust relationship with them… Perhaps I’m ranting – but if we could collectively look past the ‘short term gains’ and build programs for the long haul perhaps affiliates like the squatters, spy ware, hijackers and the like would find it harder to do business… But that’s up to ethical AM’s to champion.”

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