Today I received another email from EPN with information about changes to their code of conduct. Yesterday, we received the email referencing referring URLs, and today we have some more unclear areas that need further clarification.

There were a few items discussed with the changes, bu there were a few that are throwing some red flags. The one area that needs further clarification is this:

We have also updated the language in the Network Agreement to make it clear that our partners may not use promotional methods that violate intellectual property or proprietary rights of third party trademarks. This includes, but is not limited to, using a third party trademark (or a term confusingly similar to it) in your URLs.

No one is sure if this means there is a trademark in the FQDN or part of the directory structure, or part of the URL. FQDN, of fully qualified domain name would be buytrademark.com. Directory would be mysite.com/trademark, and the URL would be mysite.com/reviews/trademark-model-555-review.htm. I think the best assumption is the FQDN. There have been questions addressed if users have permission to use trademarks. EPN is great, but it’s a bit scary how they like to push the ban button without promoting a dialog.. in some cases.

The next sticky point is the following:

eBay Partner Network does not compensate for sales that come from invalid click activity, which includes, but is not limited to the following:
clicks generated by a publisher clicking on their own ads

automated clicking tools/traffic sources/robots
activity generated by other deceptive software

Publishers may only place links and/or promotional content on sites they own. Affiliate links on third party sites such as Craigslist, MySpace, etc. are not allowed.
You will not redirect any traffic to middle servers for the sole purpose of masking your referring source of traffic. This includes the use of URL shortening services (including but not limited to tinyurl.com, short.to and cloakedlink.com).

This will eliminate the already TOS violation of posting eBay links directly on Twitter and masking them. But, this raises the concern about SEO redirect or link masking to your own domain.  These options are available on BANS and other eBay promotion platforms, including my own sites. I wanted to read EPN’s Network Code of Conduct for myself, and found another item listed in there.

Specifically, item B:

Misdirection, Redirection and Framing. You will not make any representations, either express or implied, or otherwise create an appearance that a visitor to your website and/or Promotional Content is visiting Participating Sites and Content, for example, by framing or wrapping a site in any manner, without the express written permission of eBay Partner Network or the Advertiser. The URLs your Links direct to will appear in the address line of the browser. You will not attempt by any means to intercept or redirect traffic from or on, or divert compensation from, Participating Sites and Content or any other Affiliate.

Does this apply to SEO redirects? Not sure. There is some talk going on at EPN forums on these changes. Also at Soggy Dave’s Build a Niche Store blog, he mentions this.