NEWSFLASH!!! - Lawmakers May Decimate Internet Marketing

Warriors,
In a stunning move that demonstrates lawmakers have absolutely no understanding of the economy and the underlying forces that drive it, several legislators have decided that getting their hands into the cookie jar even deeper is the best way to help the economy avoid a recession.

How, you may ask? Why, by eliminating the tax deduction for advertising, of course. In move that's sure to cripple the advertising industry by all but eliminating ad spending for many businesses, several members of congress have proposed another innovative way to get their hands on more of your money.

Why any sane individual would propose increasing taxes on business while the economy is slow is open to debate, but if you have any Adsense or other advertising on your website, prepare for a sever decline in revenue if such legislation passes.

In another move sure to wreak havoc with online marketers, other legislators, in the name of consumer protection, have proposed eliminating behavorial targeting and cookies. Like to run affiliate programs or sell as an affiliate? Well, you'd better find another way to track sales, because the majority of such programs use cookies as the primary way to track who gets credit for affiliate sales.

Be careful who you vote for; the business you save may be your own.

From Brand Magazine -

"An end to the corporate tax deduction for advertising: With the deficit in the trillions, preventing companies from writing off their ad expenses against their taxes would give the Obama White House a new way to fund its spending. This has already been floated by Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. "He has already started looking at ad deduction issues," said Dan Jaffe, evp of the Assn. for National Advertisers. "It is my guess that some people will revisit an across-the-board ad deduction as well." Such a move would drive down ad spend as companies scramble to save their bottom lines from increased tax levels."

"Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., propose outlawing behavioral targeting, cookies and "deep-packet inspection" (a way for advertisers to see what Web users are downloading so they can serve relevant online ads). "[Markey] said there should be some sort of global bill of privacy rights," said Bennet Kelley, founder of the Internet Law Center in Santa Monica, Calif. Such a move could hobble the online ad business--the only area of marketing spend still growing. "There's absolutely going to be people screaming for privacy regulation," added Michael Cassidy, CEO of Undertone Networks in New York.

The combination of these two would obviously spell the end for contextual advertising as we now know it. Yet another reason to make your living creating and selling your own products.

Sheer brilliance in government; as we've come to expect!