A Declaration for Ethical Affiliate Marketing
The affiliate marketing industry is broken.
For too long, the space has been dominated by mercenary operations masquerading as review sites. These platforms don’t serve users — they serve the highest bidder. Rankings are bought. Reviews are fabricated. The internet is polluted with low-quality content designed to game search algorithms rather than inform consumers.
We reject this model entirely.
affiliate.fm exists to prove there’s another way. A way that’s sustainable, ethical, and genuinely valuable. A way that treats users as humans to be helped, not wallets to be exploited.
Our Principles
1. Data Over Dollars
“The only ranking that matters is the one based on truth.”
Every recommendation, rating, and review on our platforms is derived from verifiable data — not advertising revenue. We will never:
- Accept payment in exchange for higher rankings
- Hide negative information about paying partners
- Fabricate or inflate metrics to favor certain products
If a product is bad, we say it’s bad. If a competitor is better, we show that too. The data speaks, and we listen.
2. Radical Transparency
“Trust is earned through visibility, not promises.”
We open-source everything we can. Our:
- Code is publicly available on GitHub
- Datasets are accessible for anyone to audit
- Methodology is documented and explainable
- Revenue sources are disclosed when relevant
Black boxes breed corruption. Transparency breeds trust.
3. Community as Foundation
“The best data comes from the people who use it.”
We are not a company issuing pronouncements from above. We are a community of contributors who believe in our mission. Anyone can:
- Suggest corrections to our data
- Submit new information we might have missed
- Propose improvements to our tools
- Challenge our conclusions with evidence
The wisdom of the crowd, properly harnessed, beats any editorial team.
4. Ethical Practice Only
“Sustainability means playing by the rules — all of them.”
We operate exclusively within legal and ethical boundaries:
- White-hat SEO only — No manipulation, no cloaking, no keyword stuffing
- Legal data collection — We gather information through legitimate means
- No black-hat tactics — No fake reviews, no bot traffic, no deception
- Respect for privacy — We collect only what we need and handle it responsibly
Short-term tricks lead to long-term failure. We build for permanence.
5. Quality Over Quantity
“One honest review is worth a thousand SEO-optimized garbage articles.”
We refuse to participate in the content pollution that has degraded the internet. Every piece of content we publish must:
- Provide genuine value to the reader
- Be based on actual research and data
- Maintain editorial integrity regardless of affiliate relationships
- Be something we’d be proud to put our name on
If it doesn’t meet these standards, it doesn’t get published.
6. Affiliate Marketing as Empowerment
“Financial freedom shouldn’t require selling your soul.”
We believe affiliate marketing is a legitimate path to financial independence. Done right, it:
- Creates value for consumers by helping them find better products
- Rewards creators for their genuine recommendations
- Enables location-independent income
- Offers an alternative to traditional employment structures
We exist to show that this path doesn’t require compromising your ethics.
What We Stand Against
Let us be explicit about what we reject:
| We Reject | Because |
|---|---|
| Paid rankings | They deceive users who think they’re getting objective advice |
| Fake reviews | They erode trust in all online recommendations |
| Content farms | They pollute search results and waste people’s time |
| Black-hat SEO | It degrades the entire internet ecosystem |
| Data manipulation | It makes informed decisions impossible |
| Predatory tactics | They exploit vulnerable people for profit |
| Opacity | It enables all of the above to flourish |
Our Commitment
To our community and users, we pledge:
- We will always prioritize accuracy over revenue
- We will maintain open-source transparency in our tools and data
- We will welcome and incorporate community contributions
- We will operate only within ethical and legal boundaries
- We will never sacrifice quality for quantity
- We will be honest about our limitations and mistakes
- We will evolve our methods as we learn better ways
The Vision
We envision a future where:
- Users can trust online reviews because they know how rankings are determined
- Affiliates can build sustainable businesses without resorting to manipulation
- The industry operates on transparency rather than deception
- The internet is enriched rather than polluted by affiliate content
- Data is open, verifiable, and community-maintained
This is the future we’re building. One dataset, one tool, one honest review at a time.
Join Us
This manifesto isn’t a corporate mission statement to be framed and forgotten. It’s a living commitment that guides every decision we make.
If these principles resonate with you, we invite you to join our movement:
- Use our platforms — Let us prove our value to you
- Contribute — Help us improve our data and tools
- Hold us accountable — Call us out if we ever stray from these principles
- Spread the word — The more people demand transparency, the harder it becomes to offer anything less
“The revolution will be open-sourced.”