Adsense Referrals to be cancelled by August 2008

Sad to see the adsense referral program to be canceled in 60 days from now.
It was a great source of $ in the last months, hope google sets something similar with their recently acquired www.performics.com service.

If you didnt receive the google email with the advise, here it is

Hello,
 
Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program.
We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense
Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate
your patience during this transition and here are some alternative
options to consider:
 
    * Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of
DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now
operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting
users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense
Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on
advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For
further details, please visit:
www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.
    * AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense
for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the
referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.
 
 
If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google
products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals
code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August.
We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is
retired:
 
    * Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a
moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last
week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your
ad space.
    * Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create
and save all reports related to the referrals program on your
desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign
information
 
 
Why is this happening?
We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing
and supporting features which drive the best monetization results
for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing
features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most
effective in the long term.  For this reason, we will be retiring
the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional
questions, please visit our Help Center:
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882
 
Sincerely.
 
The Google AdSense Team

Code (markup):

For the official inks, visit:
Referrals Retirement
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882

What do you think about google decision?
Would love to hear some opinions here and there.

BTW, I will miss them pretty bad

 

This is probably a tragedy for anyone who makes most of their money from their referrel program. I wasn't really into the program and only received a $100 commission one time but you must admit that it was definitely a generous affiliate program. Sad to see it go.

 

Generous for the ADVERTISER! FREE ADVERTISING!
Zero for me. THAT is why the program is going away.

 

What do you mean?

 

Damn I was making some good change with Firefox refferals.
Now I'm pissed off.

 

Wow! They're canceling ALL their refferal programs? I thought it was just for the Adsense one. That really sucks.

 

Im not sure at all if they are cancelling ALL them or just the adsense ones.
The email received sounds like the adsense program is only affected
Lets see......

 

They are actually cancelling Google Referrals programme.
Not specifically Adsense Referrals - just to make it cleaer.

I guess it's time to check out the Google Affiliates section.

 

So boring having to go and remove all those referal codes all over the places!

 

I didn't have that much luck with them.

I feel horrible fom anyone who did though. All internet endeavours are risky. I saw a lot of people investing in sites to utilize the referral program.

 

Same here, never had any luck using Adsense referrals. I do better with the normal CPA sites anyway.

 

Yeah, I use referrals on one of my sites and I was pretty upset at first to hear they were phasing this out. However, I have a feeling that I'll be able to get this program with even more flexibility under the affiliate system they're talking about building up. You have to figure with Google they don't really want to go for the more limited option. I think they're just trying to make their affiliate network one that can really compete with some of the other dominant ones.

 

Interesting, I didn't hear about that piece of the story.

 

omg This Is My Main Source Of Money The Referrals.....................

Wow Google -.-

 

If adsense will remove referral ads, It will not affect my site. I dont use referral because it doesn't attract clicks from readers and surfers

 

I make $100-200 daily from Firefox/Software Referrals.. they were only the good making things Google had..

 

This Sucks....

 

This sucks massive time.....

Im now gonna have to join every other large publisher and find an alternative to the $200 days that Firefox Offers

If anyone has any suggestions..... feel free to show some ref codes

 

Yeah also recieve that email.

I make a 300 to 400 dollar a month with Firefox ...
Have to check other refferal programs ...

 

hmm I never got anything from adsense referrals so It doesn't bother me.. but this is really bad to those who make biggies on referrals..