Why would honest business people be hurt by this?
Basically, a universal Suppression List would require Affiliates to remove all the opt-out subscribers that were removed from the Merchant’s list, before an Affiliate could send an eMail to their own opt-in list promoting that particular Merchant.
In turn, the Merchant would have to remove all the opt-out subscribers from their opt-in list that were removed from ALL their Affiliates’ lists, before that Merchant could send an eMail to their own list promoting their own product.
Here’s the BIG problem…the onus is on the Merchant! So, if an Affiliate sends a promotion, via eMail, to their list and a particular subscriber on that list opted-out of the Merchant’s list prior to that, that Affiliates’ eMail is deemed SPAM!
Here’s why honest business people would be hurt by this:
1) As an Affiliate for SportingBetAffiliates.com, for example, you would be SPAMMING your list if just 1 subscriber on that list unsubscribed to any of SportingBet’s lists, and makes a complaint. This is certainly good reason for any Operator to remove you from their Affiliate Program and cease paying commissions on your Players.
2) As an Operator, SportingBet would be SPAMMING their own list if just 1 subscriber on that list un-subscribed from an Affiliate’s list that sent an eMail promoting Sportingbet. This is certainly good reason for an Operator to work with only a select few Affiliates, or drop the Affilate side of their business entirely.
3) At $100 per complaint, Affiliate Programs all over the Internet would shut-down simply because it would not make any sense to carry that burden of risk, especially when Merchants have little or no control over the actions of their Affiliates.
The stupid thing about it is that, it will have no effect on the businesses of real SPAMMERS, because the real spammers would simply pick-up the universal Suppression List and start blasting away. Most importantly, it will severely harm honest businesses that have 100% opt-in databases that could be construed as SPAM based on this new proposed law.
I’m not a legal expert on this matter, but that’s how I interpret the pending law, and why Marlon Sanders is making such a big deal about it. So, if you’re not going to petition this law from the Merchant’s perspective, please make a petition on behalf of yourself as an honest-working Affiliate. I, personally, think it’s about time we band-together and rid of these FTC nuisances!