YouTube has evolved into a powerful platform that where creators monetize their influence through affiliate marketing, raising concerns about transparency and ethics, especially when creators fail to disclose their affiliate relationships. Although regulatory agencies like the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have issued guidelines to address these issues, non-compliance and consumer harm persist, and the extent of these problems remains unclear. In this paper, we introduce tools, developed with insights from recent advances in Web measurement and NLP research, to examine the state of the affiliate marketing ecosystem on YouTube. We apply these tools to a 10-year dataset of 2 million videos from nearly 540,000 creators, analyzing the prevalence of affiliate marketing on YouTube and the rates of non-compliant behavior. Our findings reveal that affiliate links are widespread, yet dis- closure compliance remains low, with most videos failing to meet FTC standards. Furthermore, we analyze the effects of different stakeholders in improving disclosure behavior. Our study suggests that the platform is highly associated with improved compliance through standardized disclosure features. We recommend that regulators and affiliate partners collaborate with platforms to enhance transparency, accountability, and trust in the influencer economy.

翻译：YouTube已发展成为一个强大的平台，创作者通过联盟营销将其影响力变现，这引发了关于透明度和伦理的担忧，尤其是在创作者未披露其联盟关系时。尽管美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）等监管机构已发布相关指南以应对这些问题，但不合规行为和消费者损害依然存在，且这些问题的严重程度尚不明确。本文基于网络测量和自然语言处理研究的最新进展，开发了相关工具，用以审视YouTube联盟营销生态系统的现状。我们将这些工具应用于一个包含近54万名创作者、跨越10年的200万条视频数据集，分析了联盟营销在YouTube上的普及程度以及不合规行为的发生率。研究发现，联盟链接广泛存在，但披露合规率仍然较低，大多数视频未能达到FTC标准。此外，我们分析了不同利益相关方在改善披露行为方面的作用。研究表明，平台通过标准化的披露功能与合规性提升高度相关。我们建议监管机构和联盟合作伙伴与平台合作，共同提升网红经济的透明度、问责制和信任度。