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Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Do You Have Cookie Control?

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Unless you are an affiliate who can afford to pay a fine of about £500,000 ($616,173 US at time of writing), you should read this. 🙂

The EU ePrivacy Directive passed last year went into effect on May 26th, 2012. Sites that are not in compliance are subject to the fine — and that doesn't just affect affiliates in EU countries.

A site in the U.S. that targets U.K. consumers will also have to comply with the new policy.

Basically, that means:

  1. Users must be given the option to opt-in if your site uses cookies.
  2. You must inform visitors of the type of information the cookie captures and how long that information is kept.

How to comply

You will need to run javascript or install a WordPress plugin specifically for this purpose. Currently, there are 3 sources that I can recommend:

  1. Cookie Control Plugin a mechanism for obtaining a user's explicit consent for the use of cookies on their computer for WordPress from CivicUK
  2. Cookillian Provides extensible support for EU/UK compliance of the EC Cookie Directive (2009/136/EC), based on a visitor's location.
  3. EPrivacy Plug-in for Publishers from Affiliate Window (more complex than the other 2)

I was running Cookie Control on this website for purposes of example (see graphic below) and will HAVE to run it on my book sales site ASAP.

Although these directives are not currently mandated in North America and other regions, doesn't mean that you should consider implementing the practice.

Visit the ICO website for more information about the ePrivacy Directive and the new rules on cookies.

QnA: Can Affiliates Promote Skill Games in the U.S.?

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Bob asked the question, “Does this mean that affiliates can promote soft games in the US and not come into conflict with the law?” following my ‘Gaming Affiliates Set Sights on New Opportunites in Lucrative Niche Markets‘ blog post.

Although I'd love to provide a definitive answer (in the affirmative) for you, skill games promotion seems to be a big “gray area” in U.S. law, with some games deemed acceptable while others that one might assume qualify as skill games are not eligible for promotion.

And before I delve into confusing you further, here's my caveat; a) I do not work in the gaming sphere, b) I live in Canada and c) I am not a lawyer.

That said, I found this answer to the “Is it legal to promote Skill games in USA? ” question in the BetonBattles affiliate FAQ …

[Read more…]

Dell Sues Affiliates

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Dell affiliates Alf Temme, Lars Crispin Temme and Kim Temme are in big ka-ka for profiting from the avails of typosquatting.

The typosquatters registered d3ell.com, de3LL.com, d4ell.com, de4ll.com, dedll.com, derll.com and dxell.com, all of which redirected visitors to Dell.com through their affiliate links.

Dell has taken legal action on the basis of trademark infringement and wants the the defendants to hand over the domain names, and to pay legal fees and damages.

I dunno, but the terms and conditions of Dell's affiliate program at Linkshare are pretty darned clear and posted right there on the front page …

By partnering with Dell, you have agreed to refrain from the following activities, and any violation of this Section shall be deemed a material breach of this Agreement:

(a) Use or otherwise incorporate the word “Dell” or variations or misspellings in the domain name(s) of your Site(s), on any meta tags of Web pages comprising your Site, or in advertising or searchable keywords.

(b)You may not bid the following: all trademark and brand terms, including but not limited to “Dell” “Inspiron” and “Dimension”.

(Dell will probably drop me as an affiliate after their name shows up in the title bar of its post.)

Anyway, it'll be interesting to find out what happens. So, stay tuned.

Original info posted in the Inquirer on January 12th, 2007.

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