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Just to be clear, LendInk facilitated lending through Amazon, not a service they were providing. They were simply matching users who had the same reading interest.

I doubt Amazon pressured them into shutting down considering LendInk is sending business their way.

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Um, the whole point of LendInk is to not send business their way. Business would imply purchasing. LendInk is a way to avoid purchasing.

LendInk used Amazon's affiliate program. That means (up until Amazon dropped all California affiliates) Amazon would send a percentage of all sales made by that visitor over the next 24 hours to LendInk, as a "thank-you" for sending them traffic.

Sure, but they might have shopped at Amazon anyway. Given Amazon's size, it's likely they'd do so anyway.

True, and of course Amazon takes that into account when they set the terms of the affiliate program.

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