NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> $1,027 - the price of journalistic ethics?
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> $1,027 - the price of journalistic ethics?
Bob Schmidt (schmidt_at_magicnet.net)
Sat, 03 Jan 1998 21:12:03 -0500
Mark Welch writes,
>As a former journalist, and as a former InfoWorld reporter
>and reviewer, I was completely shocked by this praise,
>and the complete lack of any discussion regarding the
>ethics of a columnist being paid referral fees for
>recommending a company.
So the guy has an editorial platform and he's using it to promote himself.
Sounds like the Internet to me.
>This is a Really Big Issue on the Internet.
It is? You're kidding, right? Ethical issues seem to be the least of
everyone's worries. Well, ok, I am a bit worried about whether Amazon will
mind if I put up an associate link to Barnes and Nobles on the same page.
Is this ethical? Ah, who cares.
> "Editorial" sites are
>plugging books, CDs, and other products in exchange
>for sales commissions; even venerable publications
>like the New York Times are now setting up
>arrangements so they can receive a share of the sales
>proceeds for books they recommend. Wow.
Uh, yeah. Brace yourself. For the idealist, it's going to get pretty ugly
as we watch the disintegration of today's print publishing models. A.J.
Liebling said, "Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one." What
happens when everyone is a publisher? The ethical dilemma gets fuzzy.
Welcome to the Internet. Is this a problem? It's commonly referred to as
Advertorial in the print world. Pick up any issue of Fortune magazine and
you'll find a juicy section of it.
Why should the print pubs be left out of the Internet fun? As long as they
fully disclose what they are doing, where is the ethical dilemma? The Wall
St. model says disclose it and if it isn't illegal, it's not unethical. The
market will decide what it's worth. But, if you hide it behind closed
doors, in smoke filled rooms, in back room parlors, etc. and don't tell
anyone, then it's unethical. But if you hang your dirty ethical laundry out
for all to see, then it is buyer beware, but at least the buyer is aware.
>Of course, I'm not an unbiased person either: I
>maintain a web site that lists commission-based
>advertising and link programs like CyberGold's
>(http://www.markwelch.com/bannerad/baf_commission.htm)
>and I do receive some referral fees and royalties from links
>on some of my web pages. And I'm also working as a
>paid consultant to a company that will be unveiling an
>e-commerce site and a commission-based "affiliate"
>program in a few weeks.
So, is your point that banner networks are more ethical than Cybergold?
<g> Or should we stop reading your very good analyses? (even if somewhat
biased -- hey you're an attorney, ain't that a bias right there?<g>) I
don't think so.
Everybody works for somebody. Doesn't stop us from having opinions. Might
stop us from expressing them, though. That's just as much of an ethical
dilemma as expressing opinions just for the money, or just to keep the
money flowing. Then again, lobbiests are paid for no other purpose than to
express whatever opinions they're paid to.
Then you have the Internet user. With an above average education, isn't the
Internet user capable of sorting out ethical subtleties? Do we really need
to shelter the user, or can the user manage in this muddy milieu?
Just exactly how unethical is it if everyone is doing it? This is commonly
known as conning a con man.
Now, if you want to really want to talk Internet ethical dilemmas that have
the potential to affect every Internet advertiser, let's talk about
blocking software at the ISP level. Is it ethical for an ISP to block
wholesale the email coming from certain domains without publicly disclosing
which domains are being blocked? Doesn't the Internet user have a right to
know what mail his ISP is blocking? If the ISP were a phone company, would
you want them blocking wholesale the phone calls from the exchanges of
telemarketers regardless of whether those exchanges also covered other,
nontelemarketing, businesses and residences?
Just exactly who owns bandwidth? Is it the ISP? Is it the ISP's ISP? Is it
the public? Is it the user? If the ISP "owns" it because he buys it from
his upstream provider, as your typical ISP will contend, then surely the
user owns it based on the same reasoning. But to the extent it's regulated,
then the public owns it and it must be operated in the public interest. Is
wholesale blocking at the ISP level in the public interest? Wouldn't it be
in the public interest to allow blocking only at the user level or at the
ISP level only with full disclosure? And if it's not in the public
interest, can it be ethical?
Best wishes for the coming year.
Bob Schmidt
www.provider.com
Author of The Geek's Guide to Internet Business Success
The Definitive Business Blueprint for Internet Designers, Developers,
Programmers, Marketers, Consultants and Service Providers
http://provider.com/geeksguide/
ISBN 0-442-02557-2
