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Affiliate Marketers Under Assault

Affiliate marketers have come under assault recently. It's getting rough out there, as though the weak economy wasn't bad enough. Recently, Google has killed the search engine rankings for tens of thousands of affiliate marketers with its ("Google Farmer" or "Google Panda" algorithms).

Many of you are also bitterly aware of the recent debacle in Illinois, where Governor Pat Quinn and his fellow Democrats decided that taxing Amazon.com affiliates would be a good idea. It destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of Illinois residents.

A report in March at Chicagoist.com summed up the anti-affiliate online tax legislation in Illinois: Online retailer Amazon barely waited for the ink to dry on Gov. Quinn's signing of HB 3659 into law by dropping its Illinois-based affiliates. HB 3659 requires all online retailers with a business presence in Illinois, like Amazon's affiliate program, to collect state sales tax on online purchases. In a statement to its Illinois affiliate owners, Amazon said, “We had opposed this new tax law because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. We deeply regret that its enactment forces this action.” Full article...

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