It appears that Affiliate Marketing 2.0 is now in full swing and reaching outside the Web.  At the core of the movement is privacy.  When it comes to consumers’ computers, consider adware/spyware and spam but what about their phones?  Those are also under attack.  Today, there’s news of DirectTV being fined $5.3 million (the largest Do-Not-Call list settlement ever) for hiring “dirt world” telemarketing affiliates that ignored (violated) the No-Not-Call list provisions. 

According to Direct Magazine’s interview with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), “If a federal judge approves the proposed settlement, it will be the largest civil penalty ever for an FTC enforcement of a consumer protection law.”

I point at this and many other happenings (all involving recent federal judgments and FTC actions against marketers) as a serious indicator of changing times.  Are retailers and direct marketers who leverage the Web listening?  Setting aside all the economic implications of owning a loosely managed affiliate program, the FTC has given you serious reason to buckle down. 

Are marketers ready to spend more time with their affiliate program?  Experience tells me many are not as they have found affiliate marketing too difficult to scale… meaning that they reach a point where increased resources on the channel doesn’t move the needle enough to justify the investment.  Can marketers afford to not, at least, take an honest ownership of their affiliate program?  Can they continue shun accountability and, when held accountable by authority, shrug shoulders saying “well, I didn’t know… I couldn’t control it… it was a rogue affiliate.” I suggest to you (as does Harvard Law PhD candidate, Ben Edleman) that cannot.