As we've learned from a number of investigations in the past, popular branded searches can often become the target of search arbitrage or other brand bidding schemes. Advertisers choose to poach these terms because they're searched frequently, relatively cheap to bid on, and associated with a trusted brand (thereby easing users' skepticism and luring them in).

When it comes to brand bidding and trademark abuse, the breaking stories often center around new schemes and tactics. But today we have some more positive news. 5earch.com no longer seems to be actively engaging in search arbitrage. And furthermore, the site doesn't seem to be active at all anymore.

The latest FTC disclosure guidelines (or .Com Disclosures) issued by the Federal Trade Commission have left many marketers wondering how they should respond. Expanding on the original FTC disclosures from 2000, these 2013 guidelines have been updated with new requirements for blogs and social media, among others. Early indications suggest that these requirements are rather stringent—which should pose some interesting challenges for the affiliate marketing industry, particularly in the area of compliance.

July is the month for fireworks. Not just as an American ritual, but also in terms of search engine queries. There are far more searches for terms like “fireworks”, “firecrackers”, “bottle rockets” and other patriotic explosives in July than in any other month. Just check out the very consistent July spikes in this Google Trends graph:

We've recently completed a pair of investigations: one centered around coupon sites and another on the URL shortener ADFly.

This Sunday marks the season finale of HBO’s popular “Game of Thrones” TV series, which actually set a record for piracy earlier this year. The data from that record-setting season opener was rather impressive: over a million downloads within 24 hours and more than 163,000 users simultaneously sharing a single torrent.

At BrandVerity, we’re always looking for ways to improve our service and make our tools more useful. We know that compliance can be incredibly demanding, and our goal is to continually increase your efficiency and effectiveness.

In a recent BrandVerity investigation, we identified a new form of advertising arbitrage. That arbitrage relied on a special form of low-cost clicks: ads targeting branded keywords related to logins, sign ins, and other account activity. For example, an advertiser would bid on something like “Bank of America Login” and then load their landing page with ads based on a much more expensive keyword, such as “low mortgage rate.”

The impending closure of the Google Affiliate Network (GAN) has forced a large number of advertisers to suddenly seek an alternate network. As we've spoken with our customers that are seeking another network, I've found myself providing guidance on what questions to ask networks about their compliance capabilities. While I may have sharpened my responses with each call, I always felt that I could have answered more crisply. That's why I'm writing this post.

We know that the past few days have been very complicated for all of you who have had any sort of relationship with GAN. The sudden change has created a whirlwind through the affiliate marketing industry, with many working around the clock to develop and execute their plans of action.