??Google AdSense: We are retiring AdSense Referrals??

[domainic]

I got this from Google AdSense at 10 p.m. Being the constant newbie..I'm trying to figure out what they are talking about. Are they retiring ALL of adsense? Or is Adsense Referral the affiliate mode for getting people to sign up and use adsense. Thanks for any clarity you can bring.
Mark
Here's the email:

Hello,

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program.
We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense
Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate
your patience during this transition and here are some alternative
options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of
DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now
operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting
users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense
Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on
advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For
further details, please visit:
www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork.
* AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense
for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the
referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.


If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google
products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals
code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August.
We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is
retired:

* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a
moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last
week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your
ad space.
* Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create
and save all reports related to the referrals program on your
desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign
information


Why is this happening?
We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing
and supporting features which drive the best monetization results
for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing
features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most
effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring
the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional
questions, please visit our Help Center:
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882

Sincerely.

The Google AdSense Team

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service
announcement to update you about the retirement of an AdSense
feature.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

[DNP]

Adsense Referral ONLY the affiliate mode for getting people to sign up and use adsense.

Never had any luck with referrals so I wont be missing them too much...

[domainic]

Thanks!

Have you checked out the affiliate program at all?
I'm intrigued by "enables publishers
to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on
advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions" what do you get paid on?

The link is busted when you try to sign up as an affiliate for doubleclick.

[Credit]

Won't change much - hopefully the stock falls on this

[flamewalker]

Basically they got screwed by high referral payouts and are dropping that ball cause it hurts too much :p

[savegas]

the google affilate program sucks low pay copared to other programs and the publisher can change rates are you join. Also give you very little comtrol of ads displayed

[DNabc]

I'm still in doubt if they will just cancel the referral 3rd party marketplace, or even their own referral programs for firefox with their bar. I have many signups for those, but they are only paying me 10 cents per each, because of the countries they come from, not $1 like for US signups.

[KaneCo]

hopefully its o they can open admanger to everyone, so we can sell ads directly instead of trying the referrals.