It can affect pricing. For example you link to Amazon because you get an affiliate kick back as opposed to linking a different vendor that might charge less and not give a kickback. That’s just an example, of course, Amazon may also offer the best price on any individual item.
The material relationship between Boing Boing and vendors affects the choices Boing Boing makes over what and how to write and who to link to over what they would do if there was no affiliate relationship - which is why it is important to make clear and conspicuous disclosures to consumers, as per the FTC guidelines.
However! We sure will update our policy with the wording Amazon requires of affiliates. It seems little different from what we already have, but hey, the TOS is the TOS.
Right now our policy says this:
(“when you make a purchase on Amazon.com, Etsy.com or Thinkgeek.com after clicking one of their links on our site, we collect a small portion of the sale from them as part of their affiliate programs.”)
and this will be added:
“Boing Boing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.”
I’ll be sure to add the change to gamergate’s list of victories.
Do you think Cory would link to his arch nemesis, Amazon, absent an affiliate profit? Do you think Cool Tools would appear at all on Boing Boing absent affiliate links?
Wow, you can’t even do the right thing (well, legally required thing, if you want to keep making money from your Amazon Affiliate account) without getting in a non sequitur ad hominem in.
The instances I cited are evidence. What they aren’t is dispositive proof. But neither do you deny the resonable inference that Cool Tools exists to make money off of affiliate links and would not exist otherwise. Nor do you argue that Cory would, without direct financial compensation, prefer to link to Amazon over other book retailers or an author’s home page.
So, proof? Nope. Very reasonable inference with supporting evidence? Yup.
Well, you did kind of suggest that, buy saying that disclosures contribute to superficial trust that might de-emphasize the genuine trust that has been built up.
I don’t particularly agree with @Skeptic’s tactics, but you, @beschizza have also indulged in “word games” (as well as the snark you’ve claimed to dislike) as well as lies (by claiming that the affiliate disclosures are in BB’s ToS). I’m not sure that either can reasonably claim good faith here.
OK, here’s a genuine question. What are the bounds of that relationship? Should the editorial opinions of the contributors on topics such as privacy, corporations, advertising, the monetization of audiences, the corrosive effect of money, Amazon, etc. be the foundation of that ongoing relationship, and how much should the use of affiliate links inform that relationship? And since there has never been an explicit post—ever—about how these affiliate programs work or how they are used here (the posts @beschizza included earlier address the issue only tangentially, and in many respects are at crossroads with what @jlw has said here), how should the historical usage of these links inform the ongoing relationship with a readership that has changed and increased over the years?
Do we usually accept “well, it’s always been that way” as a good reason for something? Don’t we usually accept that descriptive realities are not necessarily good normative positions?
Circumstantial evidence is, as the name suggests, evidence.
Are you here advocating for real people who read BoingBoing, or some theoretical “average consumer” who never reads BoingBoing because they can’t talk their mouse into googlebinging the youral.
But even my grandmother new how to comparison shop, and subscribed to consumer reports.
But, if you are confused, you are confused. Perhaps you are suffering from some sort of disability. You need not disclose it. It would just make it easier to cater to your requirements.
I don’t think I’ve ever purshaced something from one of BB’s affiliate links – sorry, BB! – because I can’t afford to impulse shop (kudos to you, that have such Extra Dough); rather, if I like the thing, and the reviews seem reasonable I add it to my wishlist (and vainly try to get my mother-in-law to use the wishlist instead of getting me something off QVC. Again). For books, I usually do an interlibrary-loan request.
Well, Kevin Kelly is pretty cool. You never read his stuff before it appears on BoingBoing? Seriously, the 1980s was a pretty cool place. I still have my hardcopy of the Signal catalog.
Skeptic made a very specific claim, that “the material relationship between Boing Boing and its vendors affects the choices Boing Boing makes over what and how to write.” This has not been proven in the least.
So, what’s really cool here is that that line (“I’ll add it to gamergate’s list of victories”) is neither a non sequitur (it’s merely a joke dependent on esoteric knowledge), nor an ad hominem (because it doesn’t attribute the quality of an argument to its author’s character).
If you need to identify the fallacious qualities of that statement using fancy latin terms, I humbly suggest cum hoc ergo propter hoc and ad misericordiam.
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That’s the kind of thing that could still result in an affiliate profit. Anything and everything you put in your shopping cart, during the session you started by clicking on the affiliate link, that is purchased within 89 days sends a kickback to Boing Boing. So affiliate links aren’t just about the specific products they recommend, and get paid to recommend. Amazon acknowledges affiliate links as bieing “advertisements.” Right now the affiliate payments don’t appear to include wish list items that eventually get purchased. But that could change, or be true for other vendors. This is a bigger issue than just links to specific items.
Since Mark is editing Cool Tools for now, yes, I think there would still be overlap. Would he edit it if there weren’t affiliate links? Can’t say for sure, but I think the answer is that Cool Tools would still show up in BB from time to time.
Cool Tools isn’t making a “vendor choice” They present the links for readers’ convenience of purchase. Almost always they will also post the link to the direct sales portion of the company if one is available which probably never has an affiliate function. Would I rather they give us no info on where to purchase? Would I rather they spend their time finding the best vendor? No and No.
As for affect on pricing - you really are missing it. It does not affect AMZN’s price. yes, it may affect purchaser behavior, but it is not incurring an additional cost to the consumer and at all times purchasers need to make their own value decisions. Caveat Emptor much. BB is never making any claims that AMZN is the best place to purchase such items, but AMZN is very convenient given the breadth of their offering plus the affiliate program, seems like a no brainer.
You seem to be hung up on technical disclosure requirements that most of the community here does not care about, but that BB will be fixing anyways. So problem solved, no?
So Cool Tools is Kevin Kelly, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, which inspired Boing Boing itself, and who worked with Mark F at Wired. He can post anything he likes, guys. Mark does stuff for Cool Tools too, it’s all one big happy family here.
