Hi Justin. Thanks for reading the article and participating. I just listened to your interview last night - http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tr-out-loud/?p=162. Nice job.

I want to make the distinction in the following discussion between vendors and affiliates .

Online Vendors:

I agree with you for the companies large enough to do their due diligence before doing business online. The majority of companies in the U.S. are small businesses, many with five employees or less. There are quite a few where the business owner is the Webmaster and due diligence and legal issues become their problem to deal with. And that can be a daunting task to say the least.

Affiliates:

Affiliates and online publishers typically do have to agree to affiliate program terms before they can participate in affiliate programs. But up to this point, there have not been a lot of state and federal laws that they have had to deal with.

One of the unintended consequences of the New York State sales tax law is that Webmasters and affiliates are for the first time being affected by state tax laws and having to understand them.