• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 15, 2009

Expanding its effort to clean up mobile marketing, the Mobile Marketing Association Wednesday announced a new membership program aimed at affiliate marketers on cell phones.

By joining the program, companies agree to follow the MMA guidelines outlined in its U.S. Consumer Best Practices and Global Code of Conduct. In return, affiliate marketers will receive industry recognition that they comply with the voluntary guidelines promulgated by the MMA. They also benefit from education about recent policy and self-regulatory decisions as well as increased networking opportunities.

The affiliate initiative is meant to cut back on misleading advertising in premium short code marketing programs. Among companies supporting the MMA Affiliate Marketers program are Mobile Messenger, VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media, MX Telecom, PlayPhone, Cellfish Media and NextWeb Media.

"By recognizing a pre-approved network of affiliates, aggregators, carriers and content providers can focus on new products and services, this initiative will provide assurance that affiliate partners will be focused on consumer protection, leading to overall development of the mobile ecosystem," said Alykhan Govani, CEO of North America for MX Telecom, in a prepared statement.

Earlier this month, the MMA released the latest version of its consumer best practice guidelines for mobile content services, setting out standards for things like SMS text messaging, MMS, shortcode programs and the mobile Web.

The new guidelines mark the first time the MMA has consolidated the "playbooks," or codes of conduct, of the four major U.S. carriers-- Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA.