Warning Affiliates - Due to FTC Clickbank Cracks Down on Make Money Online Offers

[Linda Buquet]

The FTC is really cracking down on work at home and get-rich-quick offers and I for one am happy to see it! Really glad to see Clickbank, one of the major vendors of spammy affiliate offers trying to clean up the industry!

<strong>Word to the wise - check ALL your offers, not just Clickbank to ensure they aren't breaking any of the rules and use the new Clickbank guidelines below as a template for offers and offer language you need to avoid. </strong> Here are 2 key paragraphs from the letter that Clickbank sent to vendors. (Bold by me)

<strong></strong><strong>Excerpts from Clickbank letter.</strong> Be sure to read full letter available at the blog posts below.

Per the new FTC information, <strong>sales material shouldn't create the impression that customers can easily earn money without putting in much work</strong>, and should give specific ideas of how they'll earn the money (e.g., content marketing, video marketing, social media, etc). <strong>Sales pages should also not overstate how much can realistically be made, or imply that earnings are guaranteed.</strong>

<strong>The FTC also strongly discourages false urgency/scarcity messaging (for example, "Only 3 copies left!") when there is no actual scarcity. </strong>

Evidently the new Clickbank guidelines are in response, in part to this make money online FTC case <strong>"<a href="http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/emptypromises.shtm">FTC Steps Up Efforts Against Scams That Target Financially-Strapped Consumers</a>" </strong>and other recent work from home business opportunity cases.

The FTC has updated consumer education materials to help consumers avoid falling victim to these scams. <strong><a href="http://www.ftc.gov/bizopps">http://www.ftc.gov/bizopps</a></strong>

Here are 2 good blog posts that reference the changes and have good commentary.

<strong><a href="http://joelcomm.com/clickbank-clarifies-ftc-compli.html">Clickbank Clarifies FTC-Compliant Policies</a> Joel Comm</strong>

Over the past couple years, information marketers have come under greater scrutiny by the United States Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has taken several companies and individuals to task for deceptive Internet marketing practices.

As the largest seller of information products online, Clickbank.com is now issuing clearer guidelines for the types of products and/or marketing practices that will be more closely scrutinized going forward. In other words, they are going to be working harder to clean up some of the "less legitimate" offers that unfortunately litter their catalogue.

<strong><a href="http://www.jonathanvolk.com/internet-marketing/clickbank-to-crack-down-on-spammy-make-money-online-offer.html">Clickbank to crack down on Spammy make money online offer</a></strong> - Jonathan Volk

Recently there has been a surge of clickbank sales pages that have been very scammy. Making promises that you can make tens of thousands of dollars by pressing one click (seriously… one click) is just pitiful.

<em><strong>What do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts below.</strong></em>

 

[Sylonious]

That's great that they are cleaning up Clickbank offers, but people seem to think that there is some sort of threshold when it comes to what's scammy in the IM industry.

To the FTC, everything Internet Marketing related is a scam.

There isn't a single internet marketing product out there that can claim a high success rate without thoroughly vetting customers before they are allowed to purchase.

Because of this it's against "the best interest of society" to continue to let them sell these products when only a small percentage of people ever become successful using them.

 

[Social.Media.Expert]

Clickbank trying to clean up the industry???

Are you kidding some of the big vendors are hand in hand with clickbank, plus the big money and traffic to there site comes from such products and affiliates.

They will do as little as possible to put an end to so called push button software that exploits gaps in clickbank legally and so on.

Its a wonder they approve these products to start with, complete joke most of them, they have a high quality sales page and then upsells and down sells because the original product is rubbish.

Its no wonder they offer a 60 day money back guarantee then have no obvious button to claim a refund lol, leaving the new guy to frantically search google to get there last 47 bucks back lol!

 

[melovemoney]

I also think this is great news and should have been done a long time ago. I've always preached to my subscribers that anything that refers to easy, little to no work, quick and easy, or something to good to be true mixed with making money online is a scam.

Not probably or most likely a scam but it is a scam. And if for some one in a million chance it's not - it's a blackhat method that is either unethical or illegal and will be very temporary.

About time FTC.