[Link at Art.com]

For those of you I have not yet met or corresponded with, my name is Link Walls and I am the Affiliate Program Manager here at Art.com. Just to set the record straight – that is my real name! Several people have told me they thought it was a fake name as it seemed to fit a little too well for an affiliate manager at an art company. Just so you know, Link is short for Lincoln, not hyperlink.

We have made a number of changes to our program recently that I want to communicate to the ABW community. Specifically, affiliate use of any downloadable application, whether a shopping helper or adware, to generate referrals to Art.com is prohibited. Additionally, the practice of forcing a click (“cookie stuffing”) is also prohibited. I have spent much of my first several weeks here reading posts on ABW and speaking with current and past affiliates in an effort to understand this issue. We have put together a test environment here and have been testing the software of several of these companies over the last two months to be sure we understood exactly how they work. As a result we have severed ties with a number of affiliates that are often discussed on these boards. Additionally, we have reviewed our proposed policy with Ben Edelman in an effort to make sure we fully understand the issues involved.

We are currently revising our Affiliate Operating Agreement to provide tougher standards on this issue. Additionally, we will be apply tougher screening of new affiliates to our program in an effort to weed out those that inevitably will apply.

Art.com is committed to running a fair and equitable affiliate program; however I understand that many affiliates will need to wait for results, not words. Hopefully our actions over time will signal that we are serious about this issue and recognize the importance to the affiliate community. I look forward to maintaining an open dialogue with our affiliates on this issue.

Regards,

Link

[Linda]

Thank you, Link! And welcome to ABW!

[bob95603]

"....my name is Link Walls and I am the Affiliate Program Manager here at Art.com. Just to set the record straight – that is my real name! Several people have told me they thought it was a fake name as it seemed to fit a little too well for an affiliate manager at an art company."

Never thought about the Walls part of your name. I thought you were named Link because your parents were involved in affiliate marketing way back when.

[Cheesehead]

"Never thought about the Walls part of your name. I thought you were named Link because your parents were involved in affiliate marketing way back when."

Well that is quite an image: Affiliate Marketing using a Main-Frame the size of my house and some Military or Academic network with ftp. Playing pong during the breaktimes on the Tandy. Not much competition however!

[sheepiedog]

Welcome Link !! The steps that Art.com are taking are impressive. Thank you!

[oranges]

Allposters.com has the same commission structure, the same return date and as far as I can tell (I checked upromise and ebates) isn't in bed with parasites. art.com has been in bed with parasites (and screwed a bunch of us in the process) *** Note ax to grind *** If there is a choice of which poster company to join, join allposters.com.

At the very least they could do is raise the return date from 10 to 60 days.

Mike