I saw this one coming a million miles away… and today, it happened.

You may have noticed that PhoneNews.com stopped using AdSense Referrals quite a long time ago. Well, today, Google announced they were shutting down the program. It will be replaced by the Google Affiliate Network, formerly DoubleClick Performics.

This is all part of Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick. What does it mean for publishers? Not much really, this is one of the more public, but lesser-important parts of DoubleClick. Publishers probably won’t lose revenue, with competition from LinkShare and Commission Junction.

What it does mean though, is that if you have been using AdSense Referrals… you have to update all your site code by the end of August. That’s plenty of time… but enjoy the fun changing code.