Mobile phone affiliates in the UK are angry today after Carphone Warehouse revealed that they would be banning affiliates from promoting the iPhone 3G.Bizzarely Carphone Warehouse are still offering a £20 commission to the affiliates but only if they don’t promote the handset. O2 has sold out of the iPhone and won’t be offering any commission until stocks have been replenished.

In emails send via Carphone Warehouse affiliate networks Buy.at and Trade Doubler affiliates were told that if they were found advertising the iPhone all commissions would be revoked.

A representative from Buy.at sent the following email:

Commission is based on one important factor, affiliates are forbidden to promote this product under any means, including; links to the Carphone Warehouse Apple iphone page and pay per click. If any affiliate is found advertising the Apple iPhone, Carphone will not pay any commission on the sales generated. buy.at will be monitoring affiliate sites carefully to make sure there are no breaches. This is due to the very limited stock.

While TradeDoubler sent a slightly different message:

The iPhone goes live on the site on the 11th July, however they will also pay affiliates for all the Apple iPhone orders from the 7th July that go through as sales.

This is based on one important factor. Affiliates will not be able to advertise this product under any means, no links can go through to the Apple iPhone page, and if you been found advertising the Apple iPhone we will not be able to pay any commission on the sales generated.

Asking webmasters to stop promoting a device they have probably been writing about for several years isn’t a sensible option. Most well known affiliates are annoyed about the issue and Carphone Warehouse is facing a growing backlash over their handling of the issue.