New Affiliate Code of Conduct Aims to Standardise Software Guidance

The Code follows a big year of industry debate amidst browser extension controversy.

This year is shaping up to be a big one for industry compliance, with two codes of conduct launching in the last few months: one from the APMA, targeting subnetworks, and another launched by industry veteran James Little and compliance expert Ben Edelman, aimed at industry software.

The Affiliate Software Code of Conduct comes after a challenging year for affiliate, one marred, to a degree, by the PayPal Honey controversy, in which the browser extension was accused of hijacking links and unethical practices.

With the dust settled, industry experts are now examining how and why it happened. Little said he believes a key factor was the lack of clarity around the rules to begin with.

“The past year put a massive spotlight on browser extensions in affiliate marketing, but the real issue wasn't just a single publisher misbehaving — it was that the rules being operated under were too open to interpretation,” he commented.

According to Little, some of the industry guidelines were written years ago and haven’t kept pace with the quickly evolving ecosystem.

Speaking to Hello Partner, Little said that one example of this is that many of the guidelines talk about “a session,” but don’t define what this means.

“So, how are publishers meant to know what they can and can't do?” said Little.

The Code, now open for comment, will focus on the standardising rules, with the aim of helping to eliminate ambiguities and loopholes. Additional objectives cover everything from protecting user intent and transparency to fair attribution, auditability and industry trust.

“...we've been working with several networks and platforms to develop something that creates real clarity — clear lines that work across the industry, not just individual network policies that differ from each other,” commented Little, who added a key factor in the Code’s success will be industry collaboration.

“We now need all networks, publishers, and agencies contributing to get this right.”

Little said the Code’s website has been built with this in mind, allowing visitors to comment directly on the terms, raise discussions, and “help shape the final version.”

“I'm especially keen to hear from other publishers who have browser extensions to understand how aligned they are; as changes will likely need to be made when networks sign up to the initiative,” he said.

As the industry matures and regulatory requirements tighten, compliance is increasingly a hot topic. However, the proof in the pudding will be how this Code, and codes like it, scale. But, with the list of signatories publicly available for both the APMA subnetwork Code of Conduct and the Affiliate Software Code of Conduct, this could be the push that industry parties need to get on board.