In a bold move, AOL’s Advertising.com unit re-structured its publisher terms and conditions.  Publishers must now gain written permission from the company if they want to engage in:

- Incentive-oriented campaigns
- ANY form of search engine arbitrage

Stiff e-mail provisions are also enacted with ‘per occurrence’ penalties set at $10,000.  Search marketing offenses start at $1,000 per “occurence” (notably, not defined in the T&C’s themselves).  If you’re a publisher and do business with Advertising.com you, thereby, agree that these liquidated damage amounts are not only in force but “reasonable.” In other words get caught and you’re not going to weasel out.  Not only can the network withhold all monies due you’re going to pay dearly for offenses (offenses are 100% definable by the network and broadly defined in many cases).

Example:

Without the prior written approval of Advertising.com, Publisher may not purchase keywords from search engine service providers in order to drive traffic to Creatives or Landing pages, including, but not limited to purchasing keywords that include the trademark, service mark, or brand name of the advertising client to which the applicable Creative relates, or any derivative of any such trademark, service mark, or brand name ("Advertiser Marks"), or purchasing online advertising inventory for purposes of running advertisements that include Advertiser Marks on Web Sites or within emails.