Following the signing of California statute AB 155 (which I discussed a week ago here) Amazon has invited California-based affiliates — over 10,000 of which were terminated from Amazon’s Associates program in June 2011 — to re-enroll in their affiliate program. As Sarah Duxbury — who, apparently, was one of the booted affiliates as well — wrote in San Francisco Business Times yesterday afternoon, Amazon “told” her the following when she “went to re-enroll”:
The Amazon Associates Program has invited all California Associates whose accounts were closed as a result of now-repealed legislation to re-enroll in the Associates Program.
To re-enroll in the program, please agree to the terms and conditions of the program by clicking the check-box beside the link to the Operating Agreement and clicking the Re-Enroll button. All of your Associates accounts will be re-opened right away. [source]
Per the Associates Re-Enrollment FAQ page, upon the re-enrollment Californian affiliates get back their old Tracking IDs, as well as the previous Associates ID they had before the termination; so they “don’t need to make any changes to special links created … in the past”. Unfortunately “traffic referred” during the closure of the affiliate account “will not be eligible for advertising fees”.
While the latter isn’t that great of a news, the good news about the possibility to reinstate your Amazon affiliate account certainly overshadows the bad one, especially in light of the upcoming holiday shopping season.
Maybe i am stubborn but i would tell amazon to shove it up their butt and find another way to monetize the traffic.
Geno –
I am interested to hear whether or not other affiliate programs are doing the same thing. After writing to a connection at the largest Merchant I lost, he was more than happy to get my account reactivated.
I am obviously still bitter and will be very picky about the traffic I send them (esp if it is only a one year deal) but it is good to have the option of using this program again. Will affiliate networks reach out to affiliates, or will affiliates need to be the ones making the first move?
Congrats to Russia on qualification – we were lucky to get the playoff spot in the end
Bryan, first of all, congratulations to Ireland on passing the persistent and oh-so-hardworking Armenia (I won’t lie, I was rooting for them in the final game). Best of luck to your country’s team in getting to EURO 2012 as well.
Speaking of your question: it’s a very good one. I am now preparing an interview with a California-based super-affiliate, and I will make sure I include your above question in it as well.