Yesterday evening I received a disturbing email, which got me wondering just how secure my earnings in any affiliate program really were. This email was sent through CommissionJunction.com and not directly from Ebay.

Dear Christopher ********:

The eBay US affiliate program is experiencing a tracking issue that began on Saturday April 7, and may partially affect your ACRU and RevShare performance.  We expect to have this issue resolved shortly.  We will update you as soon as we have more information.

Thank you for your continued support of the program.

The eBay.com affiliate team

Essentially, this means that for the past 4-5 days my referrals could either be up or down. I'm not a big player by any means, but a few hundred dollars a month is enough to make me wince when I see an communicator such as this. Also, taking this a bit further, how has this tracking issue with the ebay affiliate program affected AuctionAds.com?

There has been no word from AuctionAds end, yet I don't quite understand how this referral tracking issue could only affect me.  Will Ebay Affiliate Publishers be owing money or will they be getting a fat check in the near future? My money is on the fact that any referrals lost, are just that, lost.

In the past 2 days I've served AuctionAds over 3,800 impressions, with more than 130 clicks, and earned just enough to receive payout. When the Ebay tracking issue is resolved, in any way, will AuctionAds be repsonsible for going back through Paypal and making adjustments with it's publishers? This tracking issue obviously does not effect everyone, but I'll be interested to see how it takes a toll on this new startup.