Update: Amazon Closes North Carolina Based Associates/Affiliate Accounts (Including Mine, Which Was At Least 9 Years Old)
June 26, 2009
On June 17, I reported that Amazon.com would be closing the Amazon Associates accounts for all North Carolina based affiliates due to what they called an “unconstitutional tax collection scheme” that was set to be enacted by the General Assembly of North Carolina. Well, they followed through.
This morning, I received an e-mail from Amazon.com informing me that my account has been closed as of June 26. They say that the tax scheme will be passed any day and will be signed by the governor. Because of uncertainties regarding the date the legislation will go into effect, Amazon says, they needed to take action.
If the change is repealed, the company would then be able to re-open the closed accounts. Once again, they provide links to both the General Assembly and the Performance Marketing Alliance for more information.
I went into my e-mail archive (I believe I have all of my e-mails dating back to August 2000) and the oldest e-mail I could find, from the Amazon Associates program, was on October 31, 2000 (it was a quarterly report). So, my account is, or was, likely at least nine years old. That’s a long time!
For anyone affected by this, I’d recommend checking out Skimlinks (see my review). I feel for those that are being hit hard by this. Skimlinks could be a way to lessen the impact and allow you to continue to use the program. Best of luck.
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RT @iFroggy Update: Amazon Closes North Carolina Based Affiliate Accounts: http://is.gd/1emQx (So begins the backlash.) #NCAffiliateTax
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RT @iFroggy Update: Amazon Closes North Carolina Based Associates/Affiliate Accounts (Including Mine… http://cli.gs/NnReM (via @tweetmeme)
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@BradCrooks I wrote two articles. Here’s the 1st: http://is.gd/1jsLB And 2nd: http://is.gd/1jsLK
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It really irritates me when companies do stuff like this to their affiliates. Just so they can save a buck on taxes they just cut off ties with some of their affiliates. Horrible business move. Good thing their is the alternative of skimlinks.
Hopefully the couple of states that are getting bad reaction from businesses with affiliate programs will show other states that this kinda stuff is not going to be a good idea
I wonded has it something in common with all those economical problems around, or it is just part of company’s politics? My oldest account has 8 years and I’m not using it for about 6. I remember the days when an account has a potential of archieving almost 10 MB of data ;) that was something :)
There is definitely politics at hand, plus the economy has states looking for more ways to generate tax revenue.