Was talking with Kevin Webster about a blog post he just wrote. OPM (Outsourced Program Manager) and AM (Affiliate Manager) ethics is not a subject I see blogged about very often. However considering the large amount of private information OPMs and AMs have access to, that is vital to an affiliate's survival [ I think it's a really important topic to bring up.
Kevin does a great job addressing some of the concerns I have and that many affiliates raise, regarding the private information that OPMs and managers have about them and their business models. He is now an affiliate, but was previously an OPM, so he can see both sides of the issue.
Ethics and the OPM
"As a former OPM (and if New York has their way, maybe a future one as well), I did a lot of thinking about the grave responsibility that comes with having the kind of data available to us that we did. As what amounts to being a liaison between merchants and their affiliates, we had sales statistics, valuable keyword information, and perhaps most importantly, a list of all affiliates in a program, and the ability to contact them.
That brings up, in my mind, one of the critical ethics issues in affiliate marketing, which is ownership of data..."