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Abstract - Turning Trust to Transactions: Tracking Affiliate Marketing and FTC Compliance in YouTube's Influencer Economy
YouTube has evolved into a powerful platform that where creators monetize their influence through affiliate marketing, raising concerns about transparency and ethics, especially when creators fail to disclose their affiliate relationships. Although regulatory agencies like the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have issued guidelines to address these issues, non-compliance and consumer harm persist, and the extent of these problems remains unclear. In this paper, we introduce tools, developed with insights from recent advances in Web measurement and NLP research, to examine the state of the affiliate marketing ecosystem on YouTube. We apply these tools to a 10-year dataset of 2 million videos from nearly 540,000 creators, analyzing the prevalence of affiliate marketing on YouTube and the rates of non-compliant behavior. Our findings reveal that affiliate links are widespread, yet dis- closure compliance remains low, with most videos failing to meet FTC standards. Furthermore, we analyze the effects of different stakeholders in improving disclosure behavior. Our study suggests that the platform is highly associated with improved compliance through standardized disclosure features. We recommend that regulators and affiliate partners collaborate with platforms to enhance transparency, accountability, and trust in the influencer economy.
从信任到交易:追踪YouTube网红经济中的联盟营销与FTC合规性 /
Turning Trust to Transactions: Tracking Affiliate Marketing and FTC Compliance in YouTube's Influencer Economy
1️⃣ 一句话总结
这篇论文通过分析YouTube上近10年的200万条视频发现,尽管联盟营销非常普遍,但创作者大多未按美国联邦贸易委员会(FTC)的要求披露其商业关系,而平台提供的标准化披露功能能有效提高合规性,因此建议监管机构、联盟伙伴与平台合作以增强透明度。