The Screenclick response to affiliate unease? They ban you from their programs

Following my post yesterday about Screenclick and the possible effect their recent changes may make to affiliate earnings, they’ve taken the very mature approach to my unease – they’ve banned me from being an affiliate with them anymore.  That just leaves Moviestar on the Compare.ie DVD rental comparison page then.  My post, along with Micheles (also a Screenclick affiliate – has he been banned I wonder) provoked some debate about the issue, particularly on Micheles Blog.  Alas their response to it all?  Just to simply ban the very affiliates who promote their product on the basis that they’ll be compensated when users actually sign up to the service.

I wouldn’t mind, but I tried several times over the past few years to help Screenclick out, by running special promotions on their behalf on various sites of ours, which ended up making us no money at all and wasting inventory.  It makes me wonder how Screenclick are approving commissions, and how often.

What are your thoughts on the issue?  Is this a mature way to treat affiliates?  Starting with the lack of consultation / notification about the website changes in the first place, and also the manner in which they’ve dealt with the matter, I think not.

Here’s the email I received today at 8.47am.

Hello Hugh from http://www.compare.ie,

Your application for http://www.compare.ie to ScreenClick.com  is now “On hold”. To be “On hold” means that the company wants to postpone your application.

There can be many reasons for this. One could be that your site was off-line when the Advertiser checked your application; another reason could be that the Advertiser would like to see if your page is developing into something better. Each Advertiser decides if they want to put an application “On hold”, so that they later on they can check the application again and then decide if they will approve it or not.

When your application is “On hold” links to this Advertiser will not work and images will not show. We suggest that you remove links and images to this Advertiser until your application has been processed.

If you have any queries on which criteria the Advertisers evaluate your website, please see the Advertiser program page. Do you have any questions? Please have a look at our Publisher Help Centre: http://img.tradedoubler.com/images/uk/help_centre/helpcentre.htm

Best regards,
TradeDoubler Ireland

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