Predatory terms are written into a program’s Terms and Conditions. They are clauses that put you at a financial disadvantage in the long run. Some predatory terms give programs the right to steal from you. Maybe not today, but perhaps in the future.
One type of term that is highly predatory is the “minimum player referral” requirement. A program might require you deliver 3 players a month — if you fail to do so, they will close your account and KEEP all of the players you referred in the past.
Example: Say you normally refer a decent number of players a month. Now, say your site suffers a setback — maybe it’s dropped from the search engines for some reason. You’re still earning residual income from your old referrals. BUT — ah-HA! You aren’t delivering “new” players anymore. Program sees this as a perfect time to enforce their T&Cs. You didn’t deliver at least 3 players in a given month! “Gotcha!” Now your account is closed, and they don’t have to pay you commissions any longer. It’s like a 30% increase in profits for them.
This is highly unethical.
VIP Profits and Nine.com have something like this in their T&Cs. I believe they are looking at removing these clauses, though. Some programs claim that such T&Cs will never be enforced. I say, if that’s the case, they why not remove the clauses from the T&Cs and make it official?
Other things to look for when reviewing T&Cs:
– High minimum payouts. There is NO reason to have a minimum payout higher than $200.
– Negative carryover. While not a huge issue to some webmasters, this is important to me. If you have a winner at a program that carries over negative balances, you’ll earn nothing until the negative is paid off. On the other hand, if you promote a program that doesn’t carry over negatives, you can be back in the black the following month because the negative is erased at the end of the month.
– Bundling. If a program bundles your earnings, it means that the positives at one casino can be erased by a huge negative at another casino. If the program does *not* bundle, it means that a negative at one casino has no effect on the positive balance at the other casinos. It’s financially advantageous to promote programs that don’t bundle.
Those are the main things I look at when evaluating an affiliate program. I sometimes do work with programs that bundle and carry over negatives and have higher than usual minimum payouts, but I never work with a program that has minimum player referral requirements. The program wouldn’t even have those players if it wasn’t for me. To force me into sending a certain number of players every month is blackmail, plain and simple, and I refuse to be a part of it. I want lifetime residual income, with no strings attached.
Hope that helps….. 