When I logged on I received this message: "This account is closed and will not generate referrals. Access to this site is for historical purposes only." and later received this email: We recently noticed your Associate links are appearing as sponsored links on search engines under the term "kindle" and variations of this term. Please note, per the Operating Agreement: 4. Referral Fees In addition, you may not: … (j) seek to purchase or register any keywords, search terms or other identifiers that include the words "amazon", "endless", "kindle", or any other trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, or variations or misspellings thereof (for example "ammazon", "amaozn", "kindel", "endlss", "enldess", etc.) ("Proprietary Terms") for use in any search engine, portal, sponsored advertising service or other search or referral service. From time to time we may request that you cause any applicable Web search provider to exclude Proprietary Terms from keywords used to display your advertising content in association with search results, assuming the provider of such Web search engine offers such exclusion capabilities. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have engaged in any of the foregoing activities or, as the case may be, refused promptly to comply with a request from us to exclude Proprietary Terms from any keyword as mentioned above, we may (without limiting any other rights or remedies available to us) withhold any referral fees otherwise payable to you under this Agreement and/or terminate this Agreement. As you have failed to comply with these terms, your Associates account has been closed. Thank you for your interest in the Amazon.com Associates Program and best of luck in the future. I had been buying search engine traffic from Yahoo since the beginning of the march and made around 165 sales. Yahoo also declined a few of my "amazon" related keywords, but not others. I am now out of an associate account and many PPC dollars. Any advice?
But they let other advertisers bid on trademarks such as "samsung HDTV" without closing their account? I am confused on how this works, because Yahoo search declined a few keywords with "amazon" in them which I assumed were trademarked, but not others.
Amazon doesn't own Samsung and it really doesn't matter if they only penalize some, but not all. Your affiliate agreement isn't with Yahoo, and it isn't Yahoo's obligation to police what you can and can't do under your arrangement with Amazon. It's an express violation of the Amazon TOS and they specifically state they can choose not to pay you and terminate your account if you violate their agreement. You should ALWAYS read the TOS - it would have prevented your account closure and loss of funds. FYI, most affiliate programs have similar wording.
in general Amazon does not care about other's trademarks. You can surely advertise samsund hdtv IF yahoo, google or any other PPC provider allows you to AND if samsung does not mind BUT as Amazon are also buying ads for THEIR trademarks AND they don't want to compete with you as their affiliate and waste more money YOU have to comply with with what they want because they give you the money
Yes amazon has the right to close any account that violate their TOS.. That also includes all pending customer orders that have not been shipped yet, no commissions for you but the merchandise will be shipped out to the customer. And if you have any thoughts of opening another account with amazon forget it as it's has been tried before. The only way would be to get someone else to open an account and make sure you stay within their TOS.
I was bidding on Kindle terms as well...... Amazon sent an e-mail saying I had to stop or face having my account closed. You should have done what they said... My account still open
I didn't even get an e-mail warning me! my account was also opened before the kindle was out, just inactive.
My account has been open for 3 years and inactive for 2+ You should have checked your e-mail settings at Amazon,....I got the email on my spam catcher gmail account...... Sign up again ...change your name a bit, use a middle initial or use wife / girlfriend brother whoever you can trust, and select a different way to get paid. Maybe write Amazon tell them you never received a warning email and promise not to bid on trademark terms.
I was thinking that too, but I was also bidding on a huge range of keywords non-kindle related :\ still no reply from the email I sent them 2 days ago.
Let us know if amazon replies to your email and what they said. I was just thinking if someone was a long time affiliate or promoter of amazon products why they wouldn't work something out with the website owner.. It's hard work on our part to successfully promote high end products and it benefits both amazon and the affiliate if they tried to work it out.