I think the spirit of that line stands though.

“You, Mr. or Ms. Affiliate, are the perfect target”

While I am not suggesting that the legislators are out to get affiliates and have some sinister plot to ruin our lives, I am suggesting that it is easier for us to be at best collateral damage than many industries.

They won't dare do something to put their contributors and supporters at risk, but lowly affiliates who "work from home" and "can't get a real job" etc. are easy prey.

I don't think any legislator actually wants to target affiliates (web publishers). Instead, the legislators want to target ("stick it to" or "enforce fair tax collection practices by") out-of-state merchants.

I think this is an important distinction because the two concepts (being a target or suffering unintended consequences) create two very different approaches (if you're a target, you're starting with confrontation; if you're suffering from an unintended consequence of legislation that's been proposed based on misunderstandings, you can try instead to educate and cooperate).

Probably the worst starting point for a communication with a state legislator's office is "overt hostility." Similarly, arguments that "internet sales should not be taxed" or "out of state merchants should not be burdened with sales-tax collections" (nor "this law is unconstitutional") are NOT going to be considered seriously by state legislators.

Instead, the focus should be on two important aspects of this law: first, states (other than New York) are not collecting and will not collect any meaningful sales taxes after enacting these laws, because merchants will simply terminate their advertising relationships with in-state web publishers; and second, in-state web publishers will lose revenue and will thus pay less state income taxes on that revenue — with the lost tax revenue far exceeding any reasonably-forseeable (nominal) sales-tax revenue increases.

Probably the most important issue here is that the booksellers' lobbyists are continuing to LIE about the New York law, claiming that Amazon threatened to terminate affiliates there but then "backed down" after the law was passed — this simply isn't true, because Amazon was "trapped" by that law's "retroactivity" clause, which Amazon chose not to litigate. To my knowledge, no merchant has ever "backed down" on a threat to terminate affiliates in states that enact advertising-nexus sales-tax laws.

But again, the key here is the "attitude" that is most likely to be productive. If affiliates perceive themselves as "targets," they are likely to adopt counter-productive strategies. Likewise, if affiliates align themselves with extreme "anti-tax" legislators, they're unlikely to be heard by moderate legislators who are seriously trying to solve state budget deficits.

As a former North Carolinian I am so saddened that they were among the early adopters of the legislation. NC has come a long way (for the worse) from the solid anti-tax state I grew up in…and that was only 5-10 years ago.

I am sure I can count on you to help us fight the tax here in Tennessee right!

Shoot me an email…I am curious where you ended up

However, if enough states pass the tax companies like Amazon and Overstock are going to have to deal with the reality of a tax. The issue of taxing the Internet, which I feel is ineviable, should be on the federal level and not the state.

"Now, more than ever, I am seeing programs that are run unethically, programs with horrible trained affiliate managers if they have any managers at all."

I'm seeing this as well and we have decided to re instate our affiliate manager training seminars. We are planning to run the first one of the year in Chicago during the month of April. Anyone interested should get in contact with us so we can schedule them and reserved them a seat.

Thanks buddy!