shahine.com/omar/

Amazon Associates is a neat program where bloggers and others who link to items in Amazon can get a referral fee when that item is purchased and shipped.

The referral fee on items varies from 4% to something higher like Kindle where it's 10% ($40 per Kindle). That's a pretty good way to make money.

I receive my Amazon referral credits in the form of Amazon.com Gift Certificates which I promptly spend myself on things on my wish list.

Some years I make lots of money, and some years very little. Much of it depends on how much gadgetry I buy and review on my blog, and how many people purchase that stuff. Also Amazon doesn't always carry/sell things I buy and review so of course I don't get any referral credit for that.

Anyway, I always wondered what happened if I bought something accidentally from Amazon from my referral link. The thing is when you go to amazon.com from a referral link they set a cookie and thing you purchase during the session is also credited to your referral.

I've always been under the assumption that it's a violation of their TOU to purchase things for yourself AND get a referral credit. Right?

Well, I assumed this was based on some honor system. The good news is that they actually deduct the referral from your credits if you buy the item for yourself. So if you do accidentally order something with your referral cookie set, they automatically detect this and in the end it all works out.

So there you go. No need to worry about accidentally buying something using your associate id.