Am I withing the Law with FTC while working with Affiliate Programs? PLEASE Help!!!

Hi,

I have an affiliate resource that provides information about affiliate programs, what they are, how you can earn from them, etc.

I also then have a directory part to that site that lists information about different affiliate programs, how much they pay, when they payout, how they payout, etc. Now 99.9% of these programs are free to join, but realistically they all should be free, but unfortunately some programs may change over time and charge or do something which I don't know about yet, but I only list free to join programs on my website, therefore I'm now aiming to sell a business opportunity where a site visitor has to pay to join it.

In anycase, I also offer a newsletter which all it does is give an email every 15 days of the newly added affiliate programs on our website. I don't sell any ones email addresses, I don't even do any email marketing, in that I don't stuff other things in the newsletter like ads. It's just simply a list of programs we have just added to our site.

In anycase, someone subscribed to this, received the email and then contacted me saying "I have unsubscribed to this newsletter as it's shady and looks like a scam as there are important info missing including disclousure info which is needed by law. Your software said you would unsubscribe me so if I keep getting emails, then I would consider that as SPAM and will let the FTC know as I'm sure they would like to know that you have missing vital information on your signup forms."

In anycase, I then reply to say these programs are nothing to do with us, we just list them, he/she then replies saying, well it's the affiliate programs your listed with then, but still you should up your game as your still doing things wrongly as I'm trying to sell these programs that don't have disclosure or vital information on their signup forms, he then claims that he's with over 400 affiliate programs and he believes he knows what he's doing and I don't when it comes to the programs I'm trying to sell.

But how I see it is, I'm not trying to sell anything as all these programs are free to join and it's up to the site visitors, I'm sure site visitors can make their mind up whether it's a good program or not once they join it which would be free in anycase. Most of these programs listed on our site uses paid software which is well known like AffiliatePro, iDevAffiliate, etc.

Not sure, but do you think I have nothing to worry about and I don't need disclosure information, I'm going to add it anyway as it's another bit of protection, but only just knew about it once this person told me.

Maybe as he said hes with 400 affiliates, maybe he's a competitor, I don't know.

What u lot think?

Thanks.

 

Come to think of it now, I believe I do have all legal stuff needed when looking at other sites similar to mine. Something this person did say is I have no info or legal stuff on my signup forms, but that signup form wasn't even mine, it was the affiliate programs signup form which is on a totally different domain not owned by mine, but to cover him self by making out he wasn't wrong, he moved is conversation in a different direction and said, it's still an issue as I'm linking and promoting them on my site.

I'm sure many sites listed within Google and all the major search engines and linked from other sites do not have 100% full legal documents on their site, some may not even have any.

 

You need to worry about your site more than the sites you link to.

So you have a TOS, a privacy policy and a DMCA notice? Once these are in place, you are much more likely to be compliant with the law.

 

You need to make sure that you are getting the right permission from the user in order to send them emails, and you need to give them the option to unsubscribe. Make sure that you are complying with CAN-SPAM.

 

I'd put something on the site (that can be updated, if you periodically review the site and make changes) to the effect that the information on the site is current as of <the last date you made sure it's current> and that you're not responsible for information that has changed since that date.

I'd do the same thing in the newsletter - information is current as of the last time you checked it (not the date you wrote or sent the newsletter).

No internet site can be current all the time, but if you say anything like "this information is correct", you may be on shaky ground. (And if you don't, people won't accept that you're serious.) Look at news sites that update as news happens - they give the time of the story. If a suspect is found innocent later, the story isn't claiming that he's still a suspect, it's saying that AS OF some specific time, he was a suspect. Do the same thing. "As of X, this information has been verified. It may not be at any later time."