Turning Trust to Transactions: Tracking Affiliate Marketing and FTC Compliance in YouTube's Influencer Economy

Context

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, arXiv cs.LG introduces tools, developed with insights from recent advances in Web measurement and NLP research, to examine the state of the affiliate marketing ecosystem on YouTube. arXiv cs.LG 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. arXiv cs.LG's findings reveal that affiliate links are widespread, yet dis- closure compliance remains low, with most videos failing to meet FTC standards. Furthermore, arXiv cs.LG analyze the effects of different stakeholders in improving disclosure behavior. arXiv cs.LG's study suggests that the platform is highly associated with improved compliance through standardized disclosure features. arXiv cs.LG recommend that regulators and affiliate partners collaborate with platforms to enhance transparency, accountability, and trust in the influencer economy.

For builders

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…