Yes, Internet Marketing Ethics DO Matter

If your definition of Supreme Success involves internet marketing, or if you ever buy information or software from anyone online, this could be of real importance to you.

Some of the internet marketing tools which are currently being hawked around the internet are not just ethically dubious, but downright dangerous, as well.

For example, I've recently been offered a way of putting an advertisement and a link to my site on other people's sites - without their knowledge or consent. Assuming it can actually be achieved, that sounds to me like an excellent definition of hacking.
Well, if it is, then it's against the law.

It's against the policy of every reputable web-host on the planet.

It's also totally against common sense, because the first thing the webmaster's likely to do on seeing it is take it off again - about a nano-second before reporting the invasion of their site to their ISP (their web host), your ISP, at least a few of the anti-hacking sites around the net, and the police.

As you're meant to use this technique to place your link on lots of sites, not only one, that could mean that you end up with a king-sized deluge of complaints against you.

Think about it for a moment. If you broke into someone's house and plastered a poster promoting something you were selling, including your contact details, on their wall, what do you think they'd do when they got home and saw it?

1) Buy your product?

2) Throw a party, and proudly show off to their friends and neighbors the beautiful new artwork that their home's been decorated with?

3) Call the contact number on the poster, and thank you for the artwork you've so generously given them?

I don't think so. Let's try...

4) Call the police, and show them on the poster the details of exactly where to find you.

(Incidentally, don't think that a private registration for your domain will save you. If the police come calling, your registration company is generally obliged to tell them what they want to know. Hacking in any form is taken very seriously now, and is generally linked in law enforcement minds with ID theft, organized crime and potential terrorist offenses. Seriously.)

It's no contest, is it? Well, it works the same way online, too. No matter what the marketers may tell you, it's important you respect the rights of those you deal with.

That includes things like their right to control their own property - such as their website - and their right to block advertising pop-ups on the sites they're surfing.

That means that the current offers for pop-ups that can't be blocked by the site visitor can get you into lots of trouble, too.

Granted, it's much less likely that someone's actually going to report you to anyone for using them - but that's not much comfort if you're annoying your visitors, and they leave your site and don't come back.

It might clash with a lot of the advice you're being given, but the rule's quite simple - if you wouldn't want your site to be hijacked by a stranger, or to find your way to the site you're trying to visit blocked by an irritating pop-up that follows you all round the screen, remember that's exactly how anybody else is going to feel if you do that to them... and if they do, they'll never, ever, buy from you.

As I was drafting this post I got an e-mail from my friend Ric at NoBull.net to tell me that he's starting a new organization called the Ethical Marketers' Association.

It's not a sales site, but a forum where both those involved in internet marketing and their potential customers can express their views on the fairness or otherwise of online marketing practices.

The idea is to introduce a standard that online marketers can sign up to, and customers can trust... and if you'd like to get involved, or have a comment that you'd like to make, you'll be very welcome if you visit the Ethical Marketers' Association and tell Ric what you think.

Working together, we can make internet marketing more trustworthy - which, after all, is the best way of getting, and keeping, paying customers.