Thursday, June 25, 2009
Amazon.com emails Hawaii associates on termination of program thanks to new law
by Larry Geller
An email from Amazon.com just came in:
We regret to inform you that the Hawaii state legislature has passed an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that, unless vetoed soon by Governor Lingle, would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with Hawaii-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of Hawaii.
I have not run Amazon ads here, but other websites do. The email ends with:
Note that other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states residents.
Let’s see what happens.
Amazon may have emailed first, but it’s likely that other advertisers could follow suit. Kind of “de-monitization” of websites. For most websites, Amazon revenue probably adds up to very little, but I wonder what the effect on the big guys like newspaper sites might be if ads are withdrawn. Just thinking out loud, I don’t know enough to speculate.
I got this letter too! I don't think allhawaiinews has made a dime off of Amazon, but I do like having the ads on my blog just to brighten things up a bit. It should be interesting to see how many bloggers contact the governor.
<< Home
Post a Comment
Requiring those Captcha codes at least temporarily, in the hopes that it quells the flood of comment spam I've been receiving.