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The Florida Attorney General’s CyberFraud Task Force juggernaut against “free” ringtones has notched another victory in a settlement with AT&T Mobility.

Attorney General Bill McCollum announced today that his office reached a settlement with AT&T Mobility.

In a significant step toward protecting consumers throughout the nation from unauthorized charges on cell phone bills, Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that AT&T Mobility will be the first wireless company in the nation to police representations made in internet advertising for cell phone content to ensure fair and full disclosure. The company will also make full restitution to Florida consumers who were unknowingly billed for “free” cell phone content. The cooperative agreement reached by the Attorney General’s CyberFraud Task Force with AT&T Mobility will establish a new model for the advertising and billing of cell phone content. Additionally, AT&T Mobility will pay $2.5 million to the Attorney General’s Office to fund the efforts of the task force as it continues to press for similar reform across the industry and will contribute an additional $500,000 toward consumer education on safe internet use.

“Consumers should never be billed for services they thought were free of charge,” said Attorney General Bill McCollum. “Today’s agreement establishes a precedent for wireless companies accepting responsibility for the way cell phone content is advertised on the internet and the manner in which charges are passed along to consumers. AT&T should be commended for being the first wireless company in the industry to offer this reform.”

Some examples of the misleading advertisements were made available by the Florida Attorney General’s CyberFraud Task Force:

• AdvertisersRewardNetwork
• Get-Your-Ringtone.com
• MobileSidewalk

The effort from the Florida Attorney General’s office is a little more than a year old. Last year, they started knocking on doors and searching for information on affiliate marketers that were promoting deceptive ringtone offers.

I was chatting with one of the folks from the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino on final morning of Affiliate Summit and she asked if everything was OK.

I told her all was good, except my feet were hurting. So she asked if I’d like a Segway for the day.

Of course, the answer was a yes. I’ve wanted to try one of these things since they came out, but I never saw one in the wild.

So she brought it on over and the adventures started.

Lot’s of folks at Affiliate Summit took the Segway for a ride. Here are the characters I managed to catch on video…

• Stephanie Agresta (InternetGeekGirl)
• Jamie Birch (Converseon)
• Tim Carter (Ask The Builder)
• John Chow (JohnChow.com)
• Justine Ezarik (iJustine)
• Ian Fernando (IanFernando.com)
• Sam Harrelson (ReveNews)
• Margaret Hearne (The Home Depot)
• Tris Hussey (MapleLeaf 2.0)
• Scott Jangro (Jangro.com)
• Zac Johnson (ZacJohnson.com)
• Chris Kelly (Google)
• Amit Mehta (Super Affiliate Mindset)
• James Omdahl (InsureMe)
• Lisa Riolo (Hammock Ventures)
• Steve Rosenbaum (Magnify.net)
• Stephanie Schwab (Converseon)
• Michael Vorel (Vastplanet)
• Andrew Wee (Who is Andrew Wee)
• Mark Wielgus (45n5.com)

Check out the video at http://revver.com/video/710100/segway-at-affiliate-summit.

I was flying home from Affiliate Summit 2008 West last night when “Boss of Me” by They Might Be Giants came on and I started thinking about the keynote from Jason Calacanis.

“Let’s talk about the brutal truth here. The truth is, you guys, I am talking to thin affiliate people. I am assuming nobody in here is a thin affiliate. OK, good.

You guys really think small. Holding up a six figure check is frankly pathetic. It’s desperate. The industry I’m in, like the Internet industry, like Web 2.0 industry elitist, you know. Kevin Rose, whatever.

They would laugh at that. It’s sad. It’s embarrassing.

Jason included pictures of ShoeMoney and Zac Johnson holding up six-figure commission checks.

I think there are some important distinctions to be made here. First, Jason states that he is addressing thin affiliates, not all affiliates.

And second, I’d like to know how Jason determined that Jeremy and Zac are thin affiliates? For anybody not familiar with the term, it’s essentially an affiliate site that offers no unique value proposition.

Anyhow, back to the “Boss of Me” angle. I get that Jason made bank in the past, and there is all sorts of money to be had in the Valley. But not everybody wants to live that life.

I know I sure don’t.

As a bookend to the conference, we wound it up with an “un-keynote” where attendees could step up to the microphone and share their opinions about the industry.

Zac took this opportunity to give a rebuttal of sorts to Jason, where he talked about how he’s quite happy bringing in the meager six-figure checks and living a fun, flexible lifestyle where he plays basketball and does whatever he wants for a good part of the day.

That is the affiliate way to me. Work hard, play hard, make your own rules, and smile.

I’m sure I could earn more if I were to play the game of flying around and wearing suits. I’d rather be a non-thin affiliate, working out of my house with my family and dog around. Wearing shorts and a t-shirt as my uniform and having Jerry Springer on in the background.

Maybe that sounds close to torture to Jason, but I love it. The high flying, suit wearing, fancy restaurant life isn’t in my DNA.

Why Invite Jason Calacanis as the Keynote?

I had a lot of people ask me that question for months leading up to Affiliate Summit and over the past few days. There were two reasons I wanted to have Jason there:

1. He can teach us.
2. We can teach him.

The reality is that I agreed with pretty much everything Jason had to say. We, as affiliate marketers, do need to clean up our own backyard.

While there are a great many people with virtue and integrity in this space, there are also scumbags that exploit it.

That’s something we don’t talk about enough, but now it’s happening. It shouldn’t have been necessary, but I think Jason’s talk may have served as a catalyst for change and internal policing in affiliate marketing.

And then there is the part of it where we can teach Jason. He is an outsider and he shared his impression of affiliate marketing.

Instead of castigating him, we should further engage him. I’ve noticed that he’s interacting on a number of blogs over the past few days about his keynote.

Understand that Jason is a smart and influential guy, and he has this view of our space. He is certainly not alone.

One snippet from his talk that I haven’t seen quoted much by those who are lashing out at him was this one: “The other truth is that SEO and affiliate people I’ve met are some of the smartest frickin’ people I’ve ever met. They’re really brilliant.”

He wasn’t slamming all of affiliate marketing, just the parts that reflect poorly on us from the outside.

Boss of Me

Life is a test, and I confess
I like this mess I’ve made so far
Grade on a curve and you’ll observe
I’m right below the horizon

Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know
Can you repeat the question?

You’re not the boss of me now
You’re not the boss of me now
You’re not the boss of me now, and you’re not so big
You’re not the boss of me now
You’re not the boss of me now
You’re not the boss of me now, and you’re not so big

So go create unique and valuable content, live the affiliate life (without a boss), and let’s figure out a way to throw out the garbage.

Jason Calacanis delivered the opening keynote at Affiliate Summit 2008 West on Monday, February 25, 2008.

The theme of the keynote was that affiliate spam is harming affiliate marketing in a variety of ways.

Jason Calacanis is the founder of Mahalo.com (friend me up on Mahalo).

Jason posted a recap on his blog.

Listen to Jason’s keynote address at GeekCast.fm or download it to your iPod.

The Great Affiliate Road Rally, a charity fundraiser for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, took place February 26, 2008 at Affiliate Summit.

Affspy won the race and a booth at Affiliate Summit 2008 East in Boston.

I have an online yellow and white page directory and I’d like to know if affiliate marketing would be right for my company. I am trying to sell keyword drive ad space to local businesses around the country. My thinking is that if I have an affiliate ad and affiliates drive business to my site and they purchase an ad, then I will share in proceeds or pay per click. Is affiliate marketing right for me?

I think there are a couple different things getting mixed up here.

You could affiliates driving ads to the opportunity where people can buy ads from you, and you could give them a revenue share from the sale of ads, or you could pay affiliates on a per click basis for referring traffic to your ads.

So, you’ve got to decide if you want affiliates to sell ads for you or drive traffic to you. You could have the two offers, as well.

Affiliate Summit 2008 West is all done now, and I’ll probably catch my breath on the plane today.

This was the biggest and most exciting Affiliate Summit we’ve had to date, and I am still marveling at stuff I learned and the people I met.

The day started with the “Ask the Experts” session, where attendees had a choice of a dozen topics and experts presided over round tables to answer questions and provide insight.

The folks at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino were kind enough to loan me a Segway on the final day, and that led to a whole lot of folks taking test drives (I’ll put up a video of affiliate marketers speeding around on this thing later in the week).

After a bunch of packed sessions, the day and conference wound down with an “un-keynote”, where anybody had the chance to get on a soap box and share their thoughts about the industry.

Then, we had the Great Affiliate Road Rally, where a dozen or so cars raced. Well, a few of them raced. The others were in a big pileup shortly after the starting line.

But it was all in good fun, as the entry fees for each racer went to the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation.

The winners of a booth at Affiliate Summit 2008 East, taking place August 10-12 in Boston, were Affspy. Share Results came in second, which gets them a full conference pass for the next Affiliate Summit, and Affilisites captured third place for an exhibit hall pass at the Boston show.

Thanks too everybody who came out to Affiliate Summit, as well as Emcee Jim Kukral, Amy Rodriguez all of the hardworking staff, speakers, sponsors, bloggers, and of course, my co-founder of this whole thing, Missy Ward.

It’s always great to meet up and learn from each other, and I look forward to seeing everybody later this year.