If you’re using the eBay Partner Network (ePN) affiliate program to make money don’t use URL shortening services such as is.gd or tinyurl. If you do they’ll kick you off the program.
My friend Barry just found this out to his cost and received an email terminating his account and reversing 100% of outstanding commissions. Apparently it’s a breech of the ePN as the user is redirected to an eBay page without their consent. Barry has also been told he’s not allowed to rejoin the ePN affiliate program in the future.
This does open up the question of users who put links onto sites such as twitter and other locations where the full URL needs to be displayed. As an example an ePN link to high value eBay for Charity auctions would be https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-53481-19255-0/1?campid=5335837209&customid=&toolid=10001&mpre=http%3A%2F2Fshop.ebay.co.
uk%2Fitems%2F__W0QQLHQ5fCharityZ1QQLHQ5fNOBZ1Q2eQ2eQQLHQ5fPrefLocZ
0QQQ5ftrkparmsZ66Q253A2Q257C65Q253A2Q257C39Q253A1QQ_LH_NOBZ1QQ
_mPrRngCbxZ1QQ_sopZ3QQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em14%3F_trksid%3Dp3286.c
0.m1, which is extremely unwieldy. This could be shortened to just 18 characters using a URL shortening service to https://is.gd/5NT4X. That’s a link to the same eBay for Charity page (without the affiliate code so doesn’t break the agreement).
If you’re an ePN partner don’t use URL shortening services on your own website, and if you want to place a link on services such as Twitter make sure they’re not affiliate links. That shouldn’t be a problem if you’re manually posting, but if you use feed services that automatically shorten URLs you’ll be breaking the ePN agreement and risk your affiliate account being closed.
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