Amazon’s Affiliate Program, also called Amazon Associates, has taken an explicit stance regarding privacy and the responsibility of their associates. The main privacy policy related requirements/ disclosures are included below (of course we highly suggest that you read through the entire updated Terms linked below).
This requirement is from Amazon’s Associates Program Operating Agreement and is related to transparency, and disclosing endorsements, a legal requirement under many countries’ laws :
You must clearly state the following, or any substantially similar statement previously allowed under this Agreement, on your Site or any other location where Amazon may authorize your display or other use of Program Content: “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
–Amazon’s Associates Program Operating Agreement, Section 5: Identifying Yourself as an Associate
This particular disclosure needs to be included in an easily accessible location of your site, best practice would be to include the disclosure clearly and conspicuously on the same page as the particular affiliate link you’re using. The closer this disclosure is to your recommendation, the better.
While Amazon does not explicitly state that you need to have a privacy policy or collect consent in order to use their services, they do directly say that you’re expected to comply with applicable law:
You represent, warrant, and covenant that (a) you will participate in the Associates Program and create, maintain, and operate your Site in accordance with this Agreement, (b) neither your participation in the Associates Program nor your creation, maintenance, or operation of your Site will violate any applicable laws, ordinances, rules, regulations, orders, licenses, permits, guidelines, codes of practice, industry standards, self-regulatory rules, judgments, decisions, or other requirements of any governmental authority that has jurisdiction over you (including all such rules governing communications, data protection, advertising, and marketing)…
–Amazon’s Associates Program Operating Agreement, Section 4: Warranties
They further say:
In addition we may (a) monitor, record, use, and disclose information about your Site and users of your Site that we obtain in connection with your display of Special Links and Program Content (for example, that a particular Amazon customer clicked through a Special Link from your Site before buying a product on the Amazon Site),(b) review, monitor, crawl, and otherwise investigate your Site to verify compliance with this Agreement…
–Amazon’s Associates Program Operating Agreement, Section 12: Additional Provisions
You need to comply with applicable law, not just because it’s in your best interest to comply with the law, but also because to choose not to do so can be considered a breach of Amazon’s terms.
Our Privacy and Cookie Policy Generator generates precise, fully customisable, lawyer-crafted policies. It makes complying with applicable law a simple matter of selecting the clauses applicable to you and entering your information.
Once you’ve generated your policy, simply head to your dashboard and add our “Amazon Affiliation” service:
Save and close the services window and you’re done. Simply add your owner and site details if you haven’t already, and head back to your site area to manage and embed your policy.
You can read more about how to generate a privacy policy here.
Our Cookie Solution makes it easy for you to meet the complex technical requirements of the Cookie Law. Simply get started with setting up the Cookie Solution by clicking here and begin customization. If you generated a privacy policy then you’ve got this step covered and you can simply click Generate under Cookie Solution in your dashboard.
Next link your cookie policy — if you generated and activated one with us the link will automatically be added and it will contain all the relevant information; if providing a link to your own external cookie policy, we strongly suggest reading about what your cookie policy should contain by clicking here.
Customize as needed and embed the Cookie Solution code on your site. Depending on which platform your website uses, you can simply install one of our many plugins to make the set-up process even easier:
Note: when setting up the Cookie Solution, be sure to implement your Prior Blocking methods correctly. You can read more about that here.
