After a little under a year of affliation with Borders.com Friends & Associates, the program ceased to exist on July 31, 2001. At first I thought affiliate e-commerce was dead, but after a few weeks, things became clear: Borders had partnered with Amazon.com to run Borders.com.

This is a very bad thing. Why? Several reasons. See my previous discussion of Amazon.com below. In addition to these reasons, though, the Internet book market has lost a major competitor. Borders.com had a wider selection of books and videos (at least in the areas of interest to me) than either Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com and almost always was cheaper, too. You will notice that certain items in the Bookstore are not available from Barnes & Noble.com; a few can be found at Amazon.com, but in some cases, the items cannot be found online. Monopolies are bad things (this is how 75% of the world ends up stuck using that inferior product called Microsoft Windows).

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Several reasons motivated me to make this change. It has been a long time since I personally have purchased a book from Amazon.com, and recently when I have been buying books, Amazon's prices have been higher, sometimes substantially, than other online retailers. Borders.com has consistently offered better availability and lower prices on items I have needed. Amazon.com's constant addition of random "stores"—everything from toys to gardening—had led it, in my opinion, to loose focus on providing low prices on books.

Recently, there was also Amazon.com's much-publicized gutting of its already sketchy privacy policy, removing from customers almost all control over what Amazon does with their personal information. Unlike at Borders.com, one must "join" Amazon.com (i.e., register and provide personal information) before ordering.

Despite the fact that building links using the Borders.com Friends & Associates program is significantly more complicated and time-consuming, I believe that the new affiliation will better serve you and protect your personal information. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.