Fellow marketer Troy over at TroyNotes.com posted a heads up regarding a new clear explanation from the FTC, regarding their recent guideline additions & changes.  I strongly suggest you visit Troy’s blog post and have a look at the FTC’s summary and FAQ post.

There’s one issue however that I don’t feel they addressed at all… their entire focus seems to be on people (primarily “bloggers” whatever that actually means) with websites that discuss and link to various products and services.  That’s all well & good, but what about direct linkers?  What about affiliate banner campaigns?  What about the myriad of cases where the marketer has no “website” at all and is merely buying paid placements somewhere and linking through an affiliate link, to the advertiser’s own website?

Is the affiliate in the wrong by doing this?  Do we have to have an intermediate redirect page that says “I am an affiliate and you have been sent to a page where i will be paid if you buy something”?  Sounds pretty silly to me, but since they seem to have completely skipped over this, and since I do as much direct linking as I possibly can… I think it’s worth raising the question!

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you do much direct linking?

Jonathan