I'm specifically focusing on the term "Partner". I think it's very misleading, and calculated to draw unsuspecting affiliate wannabes into their fold by implying that there will be a partnership and all that normally comes with a partnership. It's also directed at retaining existing affiliates, who can draw comfort in the notion that they now have a partner in eBay. Among other things, in legal terms, a partnership brings with it certain obligations of full disclosure and fair dealing by all parties. In this sense, eBay is utterly failing to live up to it's end of the relationship. There is no full disclosure despite obvious major defects in reporting and calculation of commissions. Clearly, eBay has an obligation, as a partner, to disclose the nature of the problem, and to disclose to prospective partners that they will not be receiving commissions and ACRUs as has been represented. The proof, of course, is being described and discussed throughout various forums, including the eBay affiliate discussion board. They are on notice. Fair dealing is clearly not in evidence. In fact, in partnerships, the parties have what are called fiduciary duties toward one another. This means, specifically, having full disclosure, accurate accounting and fair dealing. In short, eBay is not performing on it's end of the partnership, IMO and, thus, is misleading prospective and existing partners.
I see a lot of people having issues, I'm not sure if I'm seeing anything wrong on my end thats very obvious. I switched to EPN couple days into April, my overall earnings were almost identical to what I did in March on CJ. Click wise, I had about 3000 more clicks in April than March so I guess I've been earning less per click on EPN than CJ.
Obviously I hold a contrary opinion for the cogent reasons I outlined. Perhaps you interpret the term "partner" differently?
I think you raise a very valid point potentmix. However I'm just hoping that this is just a rough transition period for eBay and that they straighten out the tracking issues that keep being brought to their attention. eBay is well known for rolling out half-baked changes to the system so I'm figuring this is just more of the same. It certainly would help if they would communicate better with us. The affiliate team's communication is better than in the past but it certainly still leaves a lot to be desired.
This isn't a legal partnership, as in ownership or anything like that. "Partner" is simply another way to say affiliate, and Roget's says that affiliate & partner are synonyms - http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/affiliate . I've been in the affiliate business for a while, and I've seen affiliate, partner, and associate all be used to describe affiliate programs. Sorry I didn't make a longer argument earlier - just didn't have the time.