Affiliate Programs What does lifetime commission mean actually?

[Welkin]

Hello guys,

I have the following question. If I start an affiliate partnership with a particular company under a lifetime commissions status is it legal if they change it later in regard to former customers I've referred?
I know every company writes in its terms and conditions that they can change the affiliate agreement. But is it legally Ok if they discontinue the lifetime status? I think there is not a problem if they apply the new rule to future customers I refer to them. However I don't think it is fair if they apply it also to the older customers cause the company will actually continue to get money from them but without paying to me the lifetime commission agreed at the time I've referred these old customers. I think this is a kind of fraud but how is it treated legally?

 

[Melly]

I am guessing you mean revshare? I have promoted several companies in the past that offer rev share but only opted to use it with a couple. Currently I am on my 6th year of being paid by one of the companies. The other one went under "or should I say revamped under another company name" which allowed them to keep all the earnings. There is no way of knowing what the future holds for these companies. I would think legally that they would have to continue to give you your cut that is owed but it wouldn't surprise me if they had a loophole which would allow them to exclude you at one point.

 

[Welkin]

Thanks Melly.
To be more specific, I mean EuroDNS in particular. But I suppose it should be pretty much the same for other companies too.
Particularly in the case with EuroDNS (based in Luxembourg), after months of very amateurish behaviour and a lot of lies (mostly because of incompetence, I suppose), their CSO finally admitted that they discontinued my lifetime commission status which I had suspected for quite some time anyway.
The company is still the same and will continue to get money from the older affiliates I have referred so I am interested if anyone has such experince whether it will make any sense to take legal actions against them.
If somebody could share specific knowledge about Luxembourg laws would be even better but any general knowledge about such cases is also very welcome.

 

[Mayer]

well, it depends on the contract you signed, i think

 

[FreddyS]

Welkin,
first of all I used to work for EuroDNS some years ago, and I still believe it is a good company, most of my names are with them.
real lifetime does not exist, they can always change the terms and most time they always find a paragraph why they are right. I got already the most stupid answers, once I was told by Zanox that according to the company that run the offer my conversion rate was to high, thats why they quit me. Well, I had very targeted traffic, they thougth there is something suspicios. Bullshit.
regarding EuroDNS, in all their contracts (if I remember correctly) they write that they can quit any time and change the rules any time.
tell me when you find a good affiliate for domains, I have some traffic.

 

[Daniel@EuroDNS]

Hi Welkin,

I just came across this post today.

It is true that we restructured our affiliate scheme after running it for over 10 years unchanged.

In this long period we learned a lot about our domain affiliate scheme and our affiliate partners and we used this experience to launch a new and more sophisticated version.

Among many other new features, the scheme now covers all our products and not only domain names and lets you generate personalized banners, giving you more freedom in the way you promote the products.

That being said, our main goal with the change was to reward very active affiliate partners and encourage them to keep up the good work. For this reason we have increased the affiliate commission from a mere 10% to 30% and make it therefore more exciting and interesting for EuroDNS domain affiliates.

This required on the other hand to move away from the old lifetime commission as it is no longer viable.

Please feel free to contact me by email ([email protected]) if you need more info. I am happy to provide you with more details why we upgraded our affiliate scheme.

Best Regards,
Daniel