A user on the the Affiliate Guard Dog (AGD), a platform dedicated to online casino reviews and other information about the industry, has put forward the idea of a trade union specifically for affiliates.
If the idea generated enough interest from the sector, the idea would comprise between 50 and 100 affiliates who would work together to defend the sector from the predatory behavior of some operators and their affiliate programs.
The user, who uses the moniker “ThePOGG”, outlined the proposal in detail in a community post on the AGD site, saying: “There is one main issue that confronts affiliates time and time again when dealing with programs that simply decide to change the terms of their agreements – many affiliates are simply not in a financial position to attempt to challenge via the legal system actions taken by an affiliate program that are to their detriment and may not be legally sound.
“Court action can be very expensive and while there are some affiliates who have deep enough pockets to be comfortable dealing with the expenses themselves, most of us are not. Affiliate programs know this and selectively enforce detrimental changes, allowing the larger affiliates with more clout to do as they wish while ruthlessly altering the contracts of the smaller affiliates who they feel cannot viably pursue them.”
Each of the members of the affiliate union would be able to ask for help from its other members when it feels that an affiliate program may not be acting properly. All members would be informed about the issue and they would be required to vote on what further action, if any, should be taken. Each member of the union would be assigned one vote. A majority of 55% of all members would have to vote in favour of a proposed action in order for it to be taken.
