FEATURE
an operator wants is to have that same
traffic exposed to negative reports about
its brand.
Any individual affiliate doing this can
be ignored because each one is a drop in
the ocean. However, with a reasonable
number of mid-sized affiliates working
together to highlight when a program
behaves in a manner that makes it high
risk or untrustworthy as a partner, this in
turn presents a far bigger disincentive to
the operator.
What other issues would be on
the affiliate union’s radar?
We are still in the very early days of this
project. If we don’t get a large enough
response this conversation may be where
the project concludes. I don’t want to get
too far ahead of ourselves in terms of
looking for new issues to take up before
we deal with the basics.
I do not want to be at the head of the
table. I am looking to help affiliates come
together. That’s as far as my views should
influence the agenda of the organisation.
After that my hope would be that the
membership will collectively decide the
issues that we need to review, and
I wouldn’t want to define the scope of
what that may include. The free flow of
ideas and opinions is a crucial asset that
will help affiliates engage.
How will it work alongside
other initiatives, such as
Tom Galanis’ iGAA?
While a few people have spoken to me
about Tom Galanis’ iGAA initiative I
want to be clear that I don’t know Tom
personally and don’t have an in-depth
knowledge of what he intends.
Regardless, I can be nothing but
glowingly positive about anyone who’s
trying to help affiliates redress the balance
of power and would offer my absolute
support to Tom and iGAA.
From the iGAA site it appears they
will look to focus more on regulatory
compliance. Our focus would be more
on discouraging programs from engaging
in predatory and unethical changes to
their contracts.
and get a working framework in place to
allow for the review of issues as they come
up. So I would hope the union will be able
to review several issues within this period
as they arise and form a consensus about
any action that needs to be taken.
The co-ordination of this many people
will always present some challenges and the
“I have absolutely no doubt there will be overlap and
scope for co-operation with the iGAA, which is what this
project is all about”
I look forward to getting to know and
working with Tom as our respective
projects develop, and I have absolutely no
doubt there will be overlap and scope for
co-operation between us, which is what this
project is all about.
You set a target of 50-plus
interested affiliates by the end
of March to move forward with
this initiative? How did this go?
We extended the deadline to the end of
April to ensure iGB Affiliate readers have
the opportunity to consider whether they
want to take part in this initiative.
We’ve had around a quarter of the
responses needed to meet the low end of
our target. I think that’s great given the
limited coverage we’ve had to date.
But a quarter of the responses we
need isn’t enough to make this work
effectively, so any affiliate that would
consider participating or that wants
more information should contact me at:
[email protected].
If the union goes ahead as
planned, what do you hope it will
achieve in the first 18 months?
It would be a huge step forward to have a
collective of aff