Quote:
Originally posted by Kimmykim
Holy shit, that's a good point you make Richard.
Quite frankly if a sponsor takes it upon themselves to assume any liability for anything their affiliates are doing, then does that not open the door for them to be liable for the rest of their affiliates and their marketing?
For instance, had the CEN vs AOL case regarding email spam not been settled, and had it actually gone to court with a win for AOL, I always said you would see the demise of the system as we know it -- courts would then have precedence to hold sponsors and processors that made affiliate payouts responsible for actions that their non-employees had made supposedly on their behalf -- knowingly or unknowingly.
Boy wouldn't that have been the end of the affiliate system.
|
I understand your point, there was a prior AOL case where AOL said they don't monitor email, so therefore they can;t be liable for email contents.
I agree that a laissez-faire attitude is what most are going, but it doesn't seem reasonble to say just because you have your head in the sand, that a problem doesn't exist.
Being proactive does not mean condoning the CP acitivity, or placing one in liability, but then again, i don't have a law degree.
Yours and Richard;s points are very valid points, ones that the sponsor's attorneys will be able to answer.
Attention attorneys for sponsors, the question is:
By subscribing to a service that looks to scan the sponsor's affiliate websites, does that put the sponsor in any liability for being proactive?
I think that as you pointed out, there is a disconnect between the activities of the affiliate and the sponsor. the feds will bust the the CP violator, and may not have a case to mess with the sponsor...
but ignorance of their activity may not be excusable in the eyes of the law.
so sniffy proposes to be on one side a potential proactive deterrant to federal sniffing by the feds by showing an attempt to not support CP, and then on the onther side, a moral issue of just not wanting to know that the sponsors $$ are supporting CP.
A previous post wrote that why would sponsors care if an affiliate was supporting CP and sending them traffic?
Great question for the sponsors seeing how our entire proposal is based on this very question and belief that sponsors would care.
Sponsors? your feedback?
-dj