Seems like everytime I hear the news, or read my email, another company directly related to our Internet marketing businesses is tightening the reigns due to the recession.
Last week I mentioned that a number of banks have either temporarily suspended or permanently shut down their credit card affiliate programs.
Back in December, I received notice that the Westin and Sheraton hotels changed their affiliate program payout structures to pay on completed stays rather than on bookings.
Also in December, Yahoo! Search Marketing announced that it would no longer provide telephone support on many of their advertisers' accounts.
Then last Wednesday, Google announced that 70 workers would be affected when it closed 3 engineering offices in the U.S., Norway and Sweden. Worse still, the free cafeteria for employees was closed and Christmas gifts to workers this year weren't quite as lush as usual. The cutbacks at Google are apparently due to the fact that although its advertising revenues are still growing, they're not growing quite as rapidly as before.
Aaaah, Poor Google. Apparently we're not spending enough.