Welcome to Optimize Your Account, where we’re breaking down what you need to know about social media platforms and MagicLinks to increase your online visibility, maintain authentic communication with brands and your subscribers, and maximize your MagicLinks experience and commissions. Got a topic you want us to cover? Email us!
This one’s for our community members in the EU and UK – enjoy!
Affiliate links are awesome money makers – but you’ve got to tread carefully. Not only do you want to be honest and authentic with your subscribers, but you do not want to get in legal hot water for failing to disclose affililate links.
We’ve already covered what to do for US-based affiliate links here and here, and if you have a lot of US-based subscribers, you should add USA FTC-compliant disclosures to your links in addition to EU/UK-compliant disclosures. Technically, USA FTC disclosure guidelines do not apply to you, but in the interest of full disclosure and authenticity to your viewers, it’s best to add one anyways.
As of 14 April 2016, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) went into effect. Its’ final enforcement date across all EU territories will be 25 May 2018, at which time “those organizations in non-compliance will face heavy fines.” It is not yet 100% clear what effect Brexit will have on the GDPR rules.
Affiliate links can be counted as “data gathering”, so it is required that you are transparent about the use of affiliate links. This also applies to non-E.U. companies that process personal data of individuals in the E.U. If you want to read all the legal fine print, click here for the EUGDPR website and here for the Wikipedia summary.
- Long story short? Always disclose your affiliate links, no matter where you post them, no matter where in the world you live. Always.
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