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There are many ways to conduct business, ranging from co-opetition to cut throat. Many industries operated somewhere in between, but affiliate marketing tends to have more of a community vibe.
So when somebody violates the mores of the collective industry, it tends to result in a swift backlash.
The latest example comes in a thread I was just reading on ABestWeb about Experience Advertising.
This is a company that manages affiliate programs, and the action that caused an uproar was Experience Advertising owner Evan Weber bidding on the company names of his competitors in Google AdWords and running the following ad:
In response to the complaints about his marketing efforts, Mr. Weber created an account on ABestWeb, “hatingonme,” and posted:
Hey guys its Evan here..all the ads are down…why shouldn’t companies be able to advertise in Google for other companies keywords? This goes on everyday…nonetheless, I have removed all of them. If you want to keep bad mouthing me here thats fine, when everyone loves me in the internet marketing industry, but don’t be suprised if I don’t do the same on my site about you.
This reminds me of something Jason Calacanis said during his keynote at Affiliate Summit 2008 West.
He said something along the lines of “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.”
Exactly.