TOS for a specific affiliate

[jkgourmet]

I'm applying for wine club and related affiliate programs. One of them had this in their TOS:

You cannot post any specific messages to newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards or any other places unless expressly approved in writing from Cellarswineclub.com. You can post messages which are generic in nature and do not mention any specific client or offer, which are expressly approved in writing from Cellarswineclub.com.

So what does THAT mean?

[retta719]

My interpretation is that they don't want you mentioning and linking directly to them with your aff link from those places, but you can link to your own site, which in turn links to them. Just sounds like their way of covering their butts about what people might claim in regards to their programs.

[jkgourmet]

cool. Thanks.

[PpcJen]

Yeah - I agree. This is also to stop forum spammers which are running rampant right now.

I didn't understand what forum spamming was until last week. Let me tell you - It's terrible. In my opinion. The spammers find a forum, join it, and fill their profile page with spammy backlinks. They also respond to forum posts with their spam links.
Obviously forums are struggling because of it. It ruins the real members' experience - being innundated with spam. Ugh.

Anyway - I think the wine club is just trying to protect themselves from this type of activity.
Good luck! ;)

[Lynn Terry]

I imagine the policy is also to protect them in regards to the new FTC guides (http://www.clicknewz.com/2061/ftc-update/) on social media advertising and such. VistaPrint has a similar policy:


SOCIAL MEDIA/SOCIAL NETWORKS
Affiliate partners are prohibited from using social media or social networking tools and sites as a means to push offers, deals, coupons or promotions of any kind associated with Vistaprint. This includes using sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon or any other social networking arenas that the company deems inappropriate for affiliates to be promoting its offers on.

Please visit the link below to view the complete Affiliate Policy:
https://vpaff.wufoo.com/forms/vistaprint-affiliate-policy/

[Clay Franklin]

Thanks Lynn.
What is the process to get accepted into affiliate programs like Macys, Best Buy and Circuit City. I get a lot of automatic refusals when applying.