ePN and Trademark Violations

New eBay Partner Network (ePN) Rules:

On July 20th of this year (2009), ePN announced several new rules and several updated rules that eBay Partner Network affiliates have to comply with by August 1st., 2009. As if ePN affiliates needed more rules. ePN already has more arbitrary rules than California has laws! Not to mention that most affiliates would have to spend hundreds of dollars in legal fees to try and understand the legalize used in the current Terms of Service (TOS) and Code of Conduct (COC).

One of the rule changes that is adversely effecting many affiliates is the one making it clear that anyone using a trademarked brand name in their domain name will be terminated and all their pending commissions will be reversed and forfeited. Every savvy Internet marketer knows that having the product name in your domain name gives you a tremendous SEO boost, but apparently, eBay is taking it upon themselves to proactively police the Internet on behalf of trademark owners who may, or may not, care about that particular brand name. Let's get real here. Does anyone think that Mattel cares about someone using the name "Chatty Cathy" in their domain name? They haven't used the name themselves in over 40 years! It isn't a trademark violation if the owner doesn't care. Ask any cop; Trespassing isn't trespassing unless the property owner complains. And even if the property owner does complain, the cops don't show up and just shoot you. They give you a warning first.

Just like with Google Adsense, ePN's current Terms of Service indemnifies them from any misconduct on your part. In fact, the AdSense TOS doesn't even mention trademark or copyright violations. There is only section 4 where you agree they are not liable for any of the content on your Web site. So the proactive zero-tolerance approach ePN seems to be taking on this issue is obviously just another way to grab even more control over your personal property (Web site) and micro-manage everything you do.

So, what do you do with your domain names that no longer comply with ePN's Code of Conduct? Well, it's kind of a rock and a hard place scenerio. Not doing anything will get your ePN account terminated and buying a domain name that does comply and doing a 301 redirect will kill your search engine ranking, so you will probably lose commissions either way. I suggest you convert the site over to promoting Google AdSense using the technique described on my home page. You may not make as much with the site as you did promoting eBay items, but if you do it right, you will make a reasonable amount that you can be happy with.