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According to eBay…
“Sub-affiliates: Any arrangement where publishers distribute their earnings from eBay Partner Network to other publishers. Like ad networks, this has been a model that required special permission until now but will no longer be allowed in eBay Partner Network.” Source
One wonders whether or not Squidoo has or will have to nut out some kind of special agreement with eBay to circumvent this impending change. It certainly wouldn’t be in eBay’s best interests to lose an affiliate like Squidoo, they must be making eBay a LOT of money.
The change will affect HubPages. Though unlike Squidoo the ad revenue isn’t shared, it’s the ad impressions that are shared.
Stay tuned for more details as they come to hand.
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8 Comments
I don’t think this will affect Squidoo because they’re not acting as an affiliate network, and Lensmasters are not classed as sub-affiliates. From eBay’s point of view, Squidoo is just a big website that displays eBay auctions on its own webpages. What Squidoo does with its revenue (i.e. share it) is its own business. This was discussed on the forum a while back. No official word from HQ yet though.
However, this does raise an issue for Lensmasters wanting to put their own eBay links and RSS feeds on to a lens using their affiliate accounts. If HubPages is going to be affected, then Lensmaster/Affiliates will also be affected. (See this thread on SquidU)
thefluffanutta
I dunno, Fluff… I see it differently (and that could be due to my lack of coffee this morning…lol).
A ’sub-affiliate’ with eBay is someone who is paid their eBay affiliate commissions from any source OTHER than the eBay Partner Network.
For example, I say, “Hey Fluff, here’s my ebay affiliate code. Put it on your site and I will pay you what you earn”
That would make you a sub-affiliate.
And that is, in essence, what Squidoo is doing – BUT all the “sub-affiliate” eBay links are on the same site (and it’s their own site that they do have control over).
However, if I use my own eBay EPN links on my own lens which I do have control over – how would that be a problem?
Saddest part of all is that we (two fairly intelligent minds..lol) have both come to two different interpretations of this announcement.
Looks to me that eBay might want to clarify exactly what they mean here. This could be a BIG thing for Squidoo.com.
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
The way I see it is that you won’t be able to use your own EPN links on Squidoo, because you don’t own the domain.
And on one hand it might be alright for Squidoo to allow users to use ebay capsules, because it’s their own affiliate account BUT… trying to police Squidoo from the users from using their own might mean the blocking of the entire site.
Hopefully Squidoo HQ can ’sit’ down with eBay and figure it out. And either or preferably both parties make an announcement so we all know where we stand.
After reading more (and getting even more confused…lol), I’m thinking like you are now.
eBay doesn’t want our affiliate links on sites we don’t OWN – but that could be a real problem for the Squidoo/eBay relationship as you pointed out.
I think I will just hang tight and see what happens, too.
Thanks for the post (and thanks, Fluff, for bringing me here!)
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
I agree with you on your interpretation of the clause. It doesn’t matter a damn what the general definition of a sub-affiliate is – what matters is what eBay’s definition is, and unfortunately it’s completely different.
As you say, HubPages is affected but not by the sub-affiliates clause. We use our own affiliate code on HubPages (no sharing) so it’s a direct breach of the rule that you can’t use your own code on someone else’s site. It’s not good news but at least it’s clearcut – the only hope we have is that HubPages can come to a special arrangement. Squidoo just seems to be sitting in a gray area!
HubPages have gotten word from eBay that existing EPN affiliates can continue to earn from links on HubPages after August 1st, and on an ongoing basis. There is no need to remove eBay capsules or take any action.
Still waiting for the verdict on Squidoo, but I’m optimistic that it’ll be fine there too.
Finally we have an official note from Squidoo about eBay affiliates: Some eBay changes you should know about.
To summarise: the eBay module lives on, but affiliate have to remove their own EPN links.
It’s definitely a good thing that the Ebay module lives on… at least it is for Ebay. I don’t think that Squidoo would be the one missing out in the long run, if Ebay did restrict the use of the modules.