I did a hack job going through CJ’s new PSA yesterday, but there’s more thinking to do.

Here’s a thread over at ABW that you should read:

Legal Publisher Notice from Commission Junction

A big item to note:

(b) Charge-backs. An Advertiser may apply, or CJ may apply, a debit to Your Account in an amount equal to a Payout previously credited to Your Account in circumstances of : (i) product returns; (ii) duplicate entry or other clear error; (iii) non-bona fide Transactions; (iv) non-receipt of payment from, or refund of payment to, the Visitor by the Advertiser; or (v) Publisher failure to comply with Advertiser’s Program terms or other agreement with Advertiser (“Charge-back”). Charge-backs may be applied to Your Account at any time, including previous payment cycles.

I have to admit that’s pretty unnerving and offers *zero* financial stability to affiliates. Any payments received from CJ can be snapped back at any time. . I don’t care how low the probability would be of it actually happening – I absolutely *do not* do business like that in the real world.

Why the heck would I set myself up for that online? Am I playing mickey mouse games here or am I trying to establish something concrete online for myself?

There is also this indepth comparison of CJ’s old and new psa to check out:

Comparison of CJ’s new and prior Publisher Service Agreements

My advice:

Don’t agree to anything just yet. Take a look around at what your options are, what’s really involved with this PSA and if you can live with it.

I’ve been poking around for other networks and merchants to work with and taking a good look at my affiliate sites. Some I’ll be able to pull CJ links off of without flinching – they just aren’t doing anything for me or I can easily replace elsewhere.

However I do have a few sites that depend on a handful of CJ merchants and I just can’t replace them easily. In some cases these merchants provide 99% of a domain’s CONTENT. What do I do with those websites? Just crash and burn them? And that helps how?

At this point, unless something earth shattering hits the light of day, it looks like I’ll end up replacing as much as I can with other merchants and networks. What I absolutely can’t replace, I’ll have to live with and keep my eyes and ears open for other options. Fortunately the merchants I’ll have to stick with on CJ – I’m not dealing with huge amounts of commissions here. Even if the worst happened (chargebacks a year later), it wouldn’t cripple me. Nope – nothing new is going to be built up around these guys.

CJ also *really* needs to do some better informing here as to what they expect the privacy policies to state and wth they’re trying to accomplish with that. There’s a nefarious tone lingering about.