SAN DIEGO - Income Access, a provider of affiliate marketing software and affiliate marketing metrics for the online gaming community, has sent out an ominous message to its members on Wednesday, warning them that they have severed ties with the MahjongTime online casino affiliate program.  They cite 'payment concerns'. The affiliate program will be closed at the end of November.

Affiliate marketing is an internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.
Income Access writes that the programme will be closing 'due to our concerns that this program will no longer be able to cover payment of affiliate commissions.' "As a result, we felt it imperative to act now and ensure you get your payments."
MJT-affliates are asked to 'please remove all of the MahjongTime affiliate links from your site as soon as possible, they will be deactivated once the program closes on November 30th'.

All commissions earned will be paid out in the normal payment schedule in early December, Income Access says.

Income Access: 'We appreciate all of the hard work and effort that you have dedicated to promoting this program, and would be pleased to offer you suggestions on other programs in the network that may be a good fit for your traffic.'

Comment

MahjongNews has asked MahjongTime to comment on the letter of Income Access. The internet newspaper is not affiliated with MahjongTime: MJT is just an advertiser on its website. The publisher of MahjongNews stresses that until now MJT never has failed to pay for the advertising invoices, nor has MJT ever tried to interfere in the editorial course of MahjongNews.

Amongst the affiliates of MahjongTime is the internet webshop, Daja Mahjong.  Also John Kuijpers of Daja Mahjong never had any problem with MahjongTime. 

Most of the European mahjong associations are 'official partners' of MahjongTime. According to Mr. Robert Rijnders, president of the European Mahjong Association and the Dutch mahjong league, this is something else than being an affiliate partner.

Mr. Rijnders: "I do not know about all the contracts of all the EMA member-states, although I think that most contracts will be more or less the same. The Dutch mahjong association is not sponsored by MJT and is not a partner in the MJT affiliate programme. We would receive a 30 percent commission fee for each new member, via a web portal. But this portal has never been realised, so until now, we have not had any benefit from this agreement."

In other words: the European mahjong associations are not harmed in any way by the Income Access move.