I was wondering how long it would take for the ePN news to filter out
into the finance forums.  Investors need to understand the full scope
of the fiasco that is ePN.

Here are the problems with this program as I see them:

1.  Program Director/Manager Steve Hartman has ZERO affiliate
marketing experience.
    (This is the #1 problem with this program.  How can the staff be
expected to know what to do when their leader is wallowing in a sea of
inexperience?)

2. All trust among affiliate partners is gone!
    The mass banning of hundreds of affiliates on August 20, 2008
underminded the trust of ALL the affiliates.  According to ePN these
affiliates were     not removed for policy violations but rather for
not sending traffic that was "engaging" enough.  In other words, the
affiliates were terminated because of HOW the visitors performed and
interacted AFTER they arrived on the eBay site.  Experience tells me
that the level of interactivity a visitor demonstrates is closely
related to the design and content of the target site and less related
to anything that an affiliate can control.

SUGGESTION:  If the affiliate traffic is not engaging enough, change
YOUR end of the equation.  Don't hold affiliates responsible for your
short-fall.

3.  Inaccurate tracking and commission reporting.
    Since the beginning there has not been a single moth that ePN has
not had to make some adjustments to the commissions.  Either they were
under reported or over reported.  Affiliates are supposed to trust
that their commissions are being handled properly when the program
cannot go 4 weeks without reporting errors.

4.  Communication is POOR at BEST!
    ePN only comes to the forums to post useless double-talk and
lawyer-speak and totally dodges the real issues and concerns.  They
flatly refuse to provide any usable insight into the data used to
determine who is sending good traffic and who is not.

In short, I canot see the ePN program sustaining.  Their inexperience
has driven away far more affiliates than their "mass execution" did.
Trust is nonexistant and reporting is a joke.  I am not sure if ePN is
the mill stone that is dragging the EBAY stock down, but if I were an
active investor I would be paying very close attention to how this
area of the company is being run.