Clickbank Falls In Line Behind The FTC

If you logged in to your Clickbank account in the last week or so you probably saw the dreaded "You must agree to the new Terms of Service" message. I might have just hit the "agree" button and forgotten about it except that I had just spent a few days analyzing the impact of new Federal Trade Commission guidelines on affiliate marketing. That caused me to actually read the new TOS in some detail.

It appears that aside from Clickbank adjusting its terms to accommodate the intricacies of selling physical products, the other major change was the clarification of Clickbank's position on the disclosure of compensatory relationships between it's affiliates and vendors. The terms essentially parroted the FTC guidelines that state that, unless it's obvious the affiliate is being paid for the link they place, they need to disclose the relationship in a way to make it obvious.

This is a clear departure from previous Clickbank positions which have traditionally treated the owners of the hop links as unseen middlemen in a "don't ask, don't tell" transaction. In fact, most of the Clickbank hop link technology was conceived to mask the presence of the affiliate link during the click through process. I will wager there are still people buying merchandise or services on the Internet today who have no idea when they are buying through a Clickbank hop link and paying a percentage of their purchase to an affiliate.

It was clear in the new FTC guidelines that the FTC frowns on nameless endorsement even if there is no change in position from that of the vendor. However, the real motivator for Clickbank was the clarification by the FTC that BOTH the vendor AND the affiliate are responsible for false or deceptive statements in an advertisement. Additionally, the vendor is responsible for adequately informing or training it's affiliates in an affiliate program on proper advertising practice. This leaves Clickbank, who functions primarily in the role of a contract affiliate program manager, in the sticky position of having to deal with controlling the behavior of millions of nameless affiliates.

Will we see the day when Clickbank will flash a disclosure screen when a hop link is clicked? It's a possibility. I've even considered doing that for my Twitter links and other affiliate links where it's difficult to work a clumsy disclosure statement into the ad copy. It simply might be easier to stop a client in midstream and make them sign off on a disclosure.

I have theorized this may be a better place to do a full disclosure in an affiliate transaction. Most Internet users are used to being presented with long legal agreements for software licensing etc. If a customer already has the momentum to click through the affiliate link, then I theorize that they will not be deterred by a mild affiliate disclosure. However, a disclosure placed in sales copy may be more repulsive because the emotional decision to act on a buy impulse has not fully developed until the link is clicked.

I hope to do some split tests on this idea soon. I have not seen anyone do this yet and I would be interested to hear from any affiliates who have tried it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I put together a video summarizing the new FTC guidelines. You can view it here.