Amazon just announced it’s Associates Q2 2006 Compensation plan and affiliates are up in arms about the pay cut calling it a De-incentive and many are threatening to remove links. In addition to viewing the changes as a pay cut, many affiliates are upset about the fact that they were notified only two days in advance of the changes by an an email that said ‘earn more all the time’ and contained other messaging they felt was spin and insulted their intelligence.

Lots of bloggers monetize their blogs with Amazon, so Darren Rowse over at Problogger weighed in with a good overview of the changes including a comparison chart of the old and new commission structure. Amazon Change Referral Rates - Consumer Electronics Publishers Hit - Hardest: ProBlogger

“It also means the loss of the ‘direct link premium’ which was confusing but it was also quite lucrative for some publishers who now how to use it. This means that instead of getting 7.5% commission on CE products if you use direct links to specific products you’ll be getting 4% - quite a hit!”

Over at the Amazon Associates Helping Associates Discussion Board there are 51 posts from angry associates.

ron29345 says: “I AM ** F U R I O U S ** I spent all of my efforts creating and placing direct links to specific products. I was actually up all night last night creating links for speific products; then they pull this on us just 2 days before it takes effect? You bet your sweet BP that if I had known, I wouldn’t have done that. I have to imagine that within a very short timeframe most Amazon Affiliate sites will look like giant Amazon search engines like all the other garbage sites out there, rather than the carefully matched and highly targetted traffic like I send to them now… that means my commisions are going down by about 20%.”

oziii says: “To tell us two days before it takes effect and to do so in an email that says ‘earn more all the time’ and that you’re ‘excited’ by the changes and that its come from our ‘feedback and suggestions’ is just insulting and leaves me looking for other options to refer my traffic to.”

Jon Tara said: “I would have preferred an honestly-worded letter. Something like “competitive pressure has forced us to reduce and restructure our associate compensation, but we continue to rank among the best-paying programs…. What they sent out goes way beyond spin, and is just deceptive.”