Last week Amazon shut down its affiliate program in North Carolina. This week it's Rhode Island's turn.

The Amazon Associates program allows web publishers to post links to Amazon products and earn a commission every time someone places an order after clicking those links. And a handful of states including North Carolina, Rhode Island, and New York have decided that this essentially means that if even a single person in any of those states has an Amazon Associates account, that's essentially means that Amazon has a physical presence in the state... and that means that the state can force Amazon to collect sales tax on sales to customers in those states.

Amazon sees things differently, and rather than being forced into collecting sales tax, the company has decided to simply terminate its affiliate programs in North Carolina and Rhode Island, two states that are on the verge of passing bills that would require Amazon to collect sales tax. New York already passed a similar law last year, but Amazon has been fighting it in the courts. In the meantime, Amazon still operates an Associate program in New York, presumably because the company stands to lose more money in sales by pulling out of New York than it will lose by shutting down its North Carolina and Rhode Island programs.

Update: It looks like we can add Hawaii to the list of states that Amazon used to offer its associates program in.