JotSpot Backpeddles
Well, it appears that after my little discussion with Ryan this morning JotSpot has decided to update their FAQ (not yet present on their website).
The new FAQ for anyone looking at using JotSpot's affiliate program is:
Q: Where can I run your ads?
A:
You can run our ads on websites or emails that you own and control. We recommend that you put our ads on blogs and other websites you own.
You are NOT permitted to purchase advertising that competes with JotSpot in an effort to drive traffic to your affiliate pages. In other words, do not buy ads on Google or Yahoo if JotSpot also bids on those same ads.
If you wish to purchase an ad when the ad does not compete with JotSpot's ad, you may NOT use JotSpot in the ad copy, and you may NOT send traffic directly to our landing page.
Of course, after my experience, I wouldn't suggest using JotSpot until they come up with a real affiliate agreement written by real lawyers with real specifics.
Wayne Robinson
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Reader Comments (2)
We haven't gone through a legal department to write a complete affiliate agreement b/c we're much more concerned about building products and helping people find our products than about legal entanglements.
And you might want to change your tune -- you'll earn 20% of anything made by affiliates that you recruit.
Ryan Pollock
Product Manager, JotSpot
"We allow affiliates to use AdWords advertising. Please note that we'll only display one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top-level domain in the Display URL. This means that if you're an affiliate advertiser, your ad may not show for a query because another affiliate or the website that runs the affiliate program also has ads using the same (or a similar) domain in the Display URL. Also, your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company's or another advertiser's site."
What Ryan is referring to is, "Also, your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company's or another advertiser's site." - JotSpot feels that because I linked directly to their website and I chose the jot.com URL, that I am duplicating JotSpot's website (because they run their campaign with the jotspot.com URL).
Wayne Robinson
Blog Author