One tip for not getting into trouble is to not use SSL on the site you are sending traffic from (or use a referrer policy meta tag so that the browser is authorized to pass the referrer from your SSL page). SSL results in blank referrers by default. A friend had his Amazon account banned and earnings confiscated because his traffic had blank referrers.
I'll have to ask my friend about this...he was using SSL and had no referrers and they killed his account. He had no referrer policy tag. I know he was using a tracking script that he redirected traffic through as well, perhaps that was Http.
The HackerNews repo is gone (and thus the issue), but at one point this was a Github issue I successfully filed to get HN to add it so their referral data for non-SSL pages wouldn't be lost:
Most major sites these days have a referrer policy tag in their HTML that allows at least the domain of the site to flow through. But I think they also ban accounts for posting direct Amazon affiliate links on places like Reddit anyway. Amazon is similar to Adsense in its propensity to ban and confiscate earnings without legitimate reason, and sometimes without explanation. Personally, I wouldn't waste time or money sending traffic to them. It's like building a house on quicksand. CPA networks are far more reliable if you want to be an affiliate marketer.
