News – Amazon shuts Down Associates Program in MN
It was with great confusion this morning that I logged into my Amazon Associates Account only to see “this account has been closed”.
I was worried had I violated the contract somehow? Did linking my Associates account up to this new blog cause some issue I am not aware of? After 15 minutes on hold with Amazon I found out that I was not at fault…just a bit behind on the news.
Nope, it all comes down to taxes. Apparently because of a new MN tax law Amazon has opted to shut down all of the Associates accounts for those who reside in MN. This article goes in to detail on what happened: http://www.twincities.com/
How does this affect me? Not a ton. I made a small amount of money from referrals and clicks from images on my blog…very small. All of that money went back into holding contests and shipping out books to winners on my blog.
I did like that I could easily pull off a nice picture of a book and link it back to Amazon for people to read the synopsis and be able to buy it etc. I most likely will still link back to Amazon so that readers of my blog can easily access information on how to purchase books and read reviews on them.
I am still a bit miffed that this was shut down and hope that when the Marketplace Fairness Act goes through (maybe?) I will be able to open an Associates Account again. I can’t imagine how badly this disrupted other people though who make the majority of their living off of referral fees.
Any thoughts?