Shop for Charity: how to earn proven charities 5% of your Amazon spending in commission

Update: I've been accepted to the German affiliates program! Ich hoffe dass dies viel Geld für einige der besten Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen der Welt zu erhöhen.

We've put a fair bit of thought into how to structure this project to minimise or negate the chance that at some point down the road Amazon decides they don't want Charity Science as an affiliate, as people have discussed in comments. This does seem to be the most plausible downside, though we think that it makes sense to deal with it if and when it arises and it likely wouldn't be that bad. Given that other individuals and non-profits have promoted similar affiliate links, often presented as a way to support them or their charity, it is improbable. Nonetheless to make it clear that we're directing fresh sales to Amazon, we've redone the 'Shop for Charity' page to feature a bookstore with selected books relevant to EA. You can see the new copy there, which is well within the space that Amazon has allowed in the past (we haven't changed this post to keep the comments making sense, and it'll be off the Forum front page soon, with the Shop for Charity page itself what people link to in future).

Charity Science does have an advantage in running an affiliate account as the commission goes to it (as Amazon intends), and only gets passed through to other charities because all unrestricted money going to us does, as a matter of policy. So it's not like we're an individual saying "If you buy through me I'll donate some money to charity"; it's a standard case of the money going to the entity that has the affiliate account.

Is there any way this is a violation of the Amazon affiliates agreement?

Does this treat you as a 'referrer', and then give you 5%, which you are offering to donate to charity? It would be good to be clear about how exactly this works.

Good idea, but some comments:

1. I think you should remove the direct affiliate links from your post and link to your website. As I understand it, to prevent spammers you are only allowed to put links on sites which you directly own, not third party sites.

2. More transparency about how the money travels from amazon -> charity is needed, and more transparency about when/if the program stops (so people know they are not going to start benefiting your pocket in 6 months time!)

3. Google chrome extensions exist which automatically insert an affiliate link into a page (I don't know if these are a violation of the agreement) but they might be more convenient for users if they are.

Is this scheme still running? This page suggests the scheme is closed (https://eahub.org/actions/shopping/intro). Should we therefore all be using Amazon Smile instead?

Either way, it would be nice to see a short update, in particular how much this scheme moved to top charities (and how much effort it was to set up). Thanks!

For Amazon Smile, there are extensions to have it set up a redirect so that whenever you type in "Amazon.com" it goes to "smile.amazon.com". Is there something similar for this, or do I just have to always remember to use the link I bookmarked?

Is there a way, like in Amazon Smile, to designate the charity it goes to? Can any charity set up a "shop for charity" link like the ones you have for Charity Science?