Is it ethical to create a page offering services or products that you are not actually able to provide, if you never actually sell those products? For example, someone could setup a page saying that they have this year’s hottest Christmas toy, an apartment in a great location, or can provide eye surgery, etc. Then provide no way to check out, an email address that will never be responded to, and no contact information. Monetize the page using adsense. Frustrated shoppers will click on familiar Google ads with hopes of finding the product or services they desire.
Pages like this work, see my last few posts. However, I’ve decided not to proceed any further with those types of pages because I didn’t feel good about them. I received a ton of emails from users who were excited about the services/products that I was falsely offering. Reading these emails is what made me reconsider this type of marketing. Its not like I scammed anyone out of any money, just a few moments of their time.
So I ask you the question, is providing false hope to a consumer unethical?
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5 comments:
Unethical, yes.
Probably outside Google TOS as well.
Amazing results though!
For conversation sake, what section of the Google TOS do you think this violates? What is the difference between putting up a site advertising a fictional apartment and putting up a site with a fictional story?
This is from the Adsense polocies:
"Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank."
I guess someone that knows that the apartment doesn't really exist could consider it to be deceptive or manipulative content. However, without knowing that fact, the content itself is not manipulative.
"or engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill."
"Sites must respond adequately to support requests and enquiries of their users"
These 2 might fit the bill as well. Top one could cover the moral and ethical questions about what you did to get the traffic.
Anyways, the fact that it's troubling you enough to pull back on what's bringing in the revenue is powerful enough regardless of ToCs :)
I did target the xbox 360. Along with a lot of other things. The xbox 360 brought in a lot of traffic and emails, but not a lot of clicks. People know that they xbox 360 is no where to be found, so they didn't bother clicking on ads.
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