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Since affiliates are in big part responsable for the global "branding" of the product, which directy affects the number of SE searches, I don't see a legit reason to prohibit affiliates from getting their 'share' of that global branding.
The trademark argument is stupid. Fleshlight.com already get a shit load of indirect type-ins sales from the affiliates, which you don't have to pay.
This is normal and out of control, even if the affiliate program want to give the commission to an affiliate who seen his sale slip due to the customer typing "fleshlight.com" instead of clicking on the banner. (and a lot actually type fleshlight in their google bar instead of clicking the affiliate banner)
Having said that, you can run your affiliate program the way you want, but I don't think it is a good ethic move towards your affiliates, especially since the copyright protection argument doesn't sound legitimate since all the keywords searches are going to fleshlight.com -- the difference is that you have to pay commissions and you can keep the 100's of daily sales from SE for yourself.
Without the affiliates, you won't be doing 100's daily sales from SE's - You think it is fair? Well, no... not at all.
We lost $40,000 last year from the NATS fiasco, and now this. What is the next thing for 2008?
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"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." -Hunter S. Thompson
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