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Affiliate Disclosure

Last updated August 3, 2026

This page explains how affiliate recommendations work in airays, what data is (and is not) involved, and how you can turn them off. It is written to satisfy the FTC's Endorsement Guides, the EU Consumer Rights Directive, and equivalent consumer-protection laws in other jurisdictions.

1. The one-sentence version

When you ask Howdi to recommend a product or service, we may include affiliate-tagged links in the response and earn a small commission if you click through and buy — at no additional cost to you.

2. What triggers an affiliate link

Only your explicit query can trigger an affiliate link. Howdi does not scan your general chat with other users, your unrelated assistant conversations, or your memory to insert ads.

Examples of queries that may return affiliate links:

  • "Recommend a good laptop for coding"
  • "What's a beginner-friendly road bike under $2,000"
  • "Which sunscreen should I use for sensitive skin"
  • "Suggest a hotel in Kyoto"

Examples of queries that will NOT return affiliate links:

  • General chat with friends (peer messaging)
  • Assistant conversations that don't ask for product recommendations
  • Conversations touching sensitive topics (health, mental health, legal, financial advice, medications, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, weapons)
  • Conversations with users under 18
  • Any Business tier account (unless the Administrator has explicitly enabled affiliate recommendations for the team)

3. What "affiliate link" means

An affiliate link is a normal web link with a small tag added to the end that identifies airays as the referrer. Example (real merchants shown; example tag):

  • Normal link: https://example-store.com/product/xyz
  • Affiliate link: https://example-store.com/product/xyz?ref=airays-abc123

When you click, you land on the merchant's site. Your browser shows their URL, not ours. The merchant reads the ref=airays-abc123 parameter, sets a first-party cookie on their own domain, and if you buy within their attribution window (typically 24 hours to 30 days) they pay airays a commission on the sale (typically 1-8% of the sale value).

4. What data goes where

airays sends to the affiliate network: nothing about you. We include the affiliate tag in the URL Howdi returns to you. That's it. Your click happens in your browser and is a normal HTTP request to the merchant's site.

The affiliate network / merchant sees: the click itself (their normal server logs), the airays referrer tag, and — via their own cookies on their own domain — any subsequent activity you take on their site (browsing, purchase). That data is governed by their privacy policies, not airays's.

airays receives back: aggregate commission reports (typically monthly totals per merchant, not per user). airays does not receive your identity, what you looked at, or whether you specifically purchased.

5. Affiliate networks used

This feature is planned but not yet launched. The specific affiliate networks and merchant relationships will be listed here and in the Privacy Policy Section 7 once the first integration ships. Notified changes: we will update this page and email Free-tier users at least 14 days before the first affiliate link appears in a response.

6. How to identify an affiliate link

Every affiliate-tagged link in a Howdi response is marked in the message with a small "Sponsored" or "affiliate" tag next to it. Non-affiliate links (Wikipedia articles, official support pages, general references) are not tagged.

The response will also include a footer note like: "This response contains affiliate links. If you click and buy, airays may earn a commission at no extra cost to you."

7. How to turn affiliate recommendations off

Go to Settings → Privacy → Affiliate Recommendations and toggle off. When off, Howdi will not include affiliate-tagged links in AI Outputs; it will still recommend products where relevant but with plain (non-commission) links.

Affiliate Recommendations are default-on for Free and Pro tiers, default-off for Business tier.

8. Editorial independence

airays does not accept payment from merchants for placement in specific recommendations. Howdi selects which products or services to recommend based on their fit to your query, not on which merchant pays the highest commission rate. If a recommendation is affected by a commercial relationship beyond a standard affiliate rate, we will disclose that specifically in the response.

Editorial standards for AI recommendations:

  • Recommendations must fit the user's stated need
  • Merchant reputation and product quality signals take precedence over commission rate
  • Affiliate tagging is applied post-hoc to the link, not chosen at recommendation time
  • Users may report bad or irrelevant recommendations from the message context menu

9. Not warranties

Products and services linked through affiliate networks are provided by third parties. airays does not warrant their quality, safety, availability, price, delivery, or fitness for any purpose. If you have a purchase issue, contact the merchant directly. airays is not a party to the transaction between you and the merchant.

10. Regional supplements

European Economic Area / UK / Switzerland: Affiliate links are disclosed at the point of use, satisfying the "clear and conspicuous" requirement of the Consumer Rights Directive and equivalent national laws. You retain all standard consumer rights against the merchant, not against airays.

United States: Disclosures satisfy the FTC's "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising" (16 CFR Part 255). airays is compensated only via standard commission rates, not by product-specific sponsorships.

Canada: Disclosures satisfy the Competition Act and the Ad Standards Code of Ethics.

Australia: Disclosures satisfy the Australian Consumer Law and the AANA Code of Ethics.

11. Contact

Questions about affiliate recommendations: contact@airays.ai . Reports of bad recommendations, misleading tags, or broken affiliate links: use the "Report" button on the message itself, or email abuse@airays.ai.