Of course you have bills!
But, this post isn’t really about your bills. It’s about your merchants’ search policy and restricted trademarks.
By using “Got Bills?” in the title of this post, I may be in violation of LowerMyBills affiliate search policy, as ‘GOT BILLS?’ is a ‘Restricted LowerMyBills TMs’.
Here is a portion of the LowerMyBills.com search policy:
There are many ways for affiliates to market LowerMyBills.com. While we encourage entrepreneurial creativity among our publishers, we would appreciate your adherence to the following regulations regarding our affiliate marketing practices.
The email mentions specific promotional techniques and Restricted LowerMyBills TMs to avoid, including:
- Linking to our site directly from any search engine.
- Using triggered-event headlines such as “Get a $600K mortgage for $300 a month”
- MORTGAGE QUOTES. FAST. EASY. FREE.
- EASY COMPARISONS. MORE CHOICES. BIGGER SAVINGS.
- LOWERMYBILLS.COM
- LOWERYOURBILLS.COM
- GOT BILLS?
- BILLPAY PLUS
- LOWERMYBILLS.COM
If it seems ludicrous to worry about using the phrase ‘got bills?’ in the title of a blog post simply because it is one of my merchant’s registered trademarks; you may have missed my ‘Affiliate’s Corner’ column in Revenue magazine in late 2006.
In it, I wrote about the struggle I had to retain affiliation with a credit card merchant after being accused of allowing their trademarked terms to appear in comment spam on one of my blogs.
That accusation was completely ludricous because I didn’t own the ‘suspect’ blog, and their failure to do proper research cobmined with a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach wasted so much of my time that I could not in good conscience continue to promote their product. BTW, I get more junk snail mail from this bank than all the others combined. How’s that for ironic?
Anyway, if that merchant took issue with blog comment spam – how might your merchants react if you post their trademarked terms in your blog titles? Is that an infringement of their policy?
The point is that if you don’t know — ASK.
Read your merchants’ search policies, ask questions and abide by the rules if you want to continue your affiliation. Most reasonable merchants will send you a warning – however, as you now know, not all merchants are so reasonable. 
About Rosalind Gardner
I get so mad when companies turn me off when I have done nothing “really” wrong.
Sometimes I go and bid on their terms and drive to a page talking about the other services/companies that are an option…even if I take a loss….just to show that it is better to work with affiliates.
I just got told by Google that I used their trademark on my site without permission and was to take it down, it was an ad for Google Cash 3rd edt.ebook by chris carpenter! And the new Google for free ebook. How do you advertise it if you do not have permission and that is the name of the product? Not that I was making any money anyhow!
I do believe that you are in significant error indicating that the use of common words in the english dictionary can be trade marked. Someone needs to look up some court cases on this issue.
This is kinda like the sales and marketing office of a company posting a “no solicitation allowed” sign on the door. Duh.
Personaly, I don’t like to promote products when they give us hard time as affiliate marketers.
I promote people who like affiliates only!
Hello Rosalind, nice to see you are still going strong. Am alone in not liking RSS feed. Is it true that it is no longer a viable marketing tool as I have read recently; as well as pinging too many people they said it’s been done to death they said it’s reached saturation point?
Best wishes and keep up the good work
regards
Patricia
They’re not Walmart…is their brand so strong in the marketplace that they can’t benefit from affiliates advertising on their ‘trademarks?’ Merchants need to better understand the advantages of conserving their own ad budget and letting affiliates look after the expense for them (advertising responsibly of course).
Perhaps these merchants expect us to use Gxxgle or LowerMyBxxxx?
Well, to respect the privileges that come with registering their trademarks, its good practice to include the TM (or R) characters when mentioning their TM in blog posts and also a statement like “xxxx is a registered trademark of xxx” and when appropriate continue with “…this website is not affiliated with xxx.”
Clara