What is an Affiliate Marketer and Why Are Affiliates the Bad Guys?

There's a certain embarrassment about being an affiliate.  When I talk openly about being an affiliate marketer, it's usually to someone who's never heard of the role, or someone who is herself an affiliate marketer.  The rest of the world looks on and disapproves.

In particular, affiliate sites have an increasingly bad reputation with search engines.  They also have a bad reputation in other online communities, for a lot of reasons.  The major ones are that they're seen as spammers and they're a new kind of professional animal that nobody fully understands.

Amazon Associates Cut Off in North Carolina, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Other States: Why This is Bad for the Economy

Recently, states such as New York, North Carolina, Hawaii, Rhode Island, California, and others have introduced tax law legislation that would cause large retailers such as Amazon.com and Overstock.com to charge sales tax on interstate sales made from Associates' website links. (The "Associates" program is so-named to distinguish Associates from Amazon's official affiliates, but is colloquially referred to by publishers as an affiliate program.) In reaction, Amazon and Overstock have been closing their Associates programs in the states where the bills are likely to pass (though today there's word that Overstock reversed the California and Hawaii decision) opting to orphan their Associates in those states rather than succumb to paying the tax.

Popular opinion on these changes has been divided.