Affiliate Dilemma - ethics or money?

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There has been an interesting discussion here over the last few months about website ethics, UberAffiliate, a large mainstream affiliate, recently posted in his blog that he is giving up promoting anything he regards as unethical ? ring tones, payday loans and diet pills.

Excerpts- "Whether we like to admin the fact or not, a LOT of business in affiliate marketing completely scams and screws people over, and were the guys in the background making a profit from it. We completely take for granted all the money we make and the lengths well go to make that money sometimes.

I believe in karma and that?s what got me thinking on the subject, and I?m done promoting these things that either completely ruin peoples lives, or scam them for a quick buck. Is it worth making a lot of money for yourself when you know that you had to screw literally thousands of people to do it? Just think about the kind of negative effect you?re having on all these peoples lives."


Payday loans
Payday loans are one of the biggest verticals in the financial sector. simply put, a person in desperate need signs up for a loan, when he doesn?t pay the loan back, he?s charged 400% in interest and ends up being in debt for years. Sure most of these people are stupid, but can we use that as a legitimate excuse to ruin their lives?

Green Tea/Acai
The green tea/acai phenomenon is huge right now in affiliate marketing. There?s ads all over Facebook urging overweight people that they can really lose weight for free with the help of green tea. The fact alone that we are leading these people to believe that drinking green tea is going to make them lose fat is bullshit. The sites are filled with fake testimonials and people even pose as fat chicks to get conversions. It gets worse though, they think they're paying $3.95 to get a free trial bottle, but in the fine print they opt-in to be sent a bottle a month if they don't cancel within 7 days. These assholes charge $90 for a 1 month supply bottle and just rebill the persons credit card every month. Most people don't realize it until they've been hit a couple times and paid $200 bucks and gotten crappy pills that didn't help anyways.

Ringtones/Crush/Mobile
I don?t even really have to go into ringtones and mobile stuff because everybody knows they?re deceptive. Again these people are idiots for reading the text that says $9.99/month or $2.99/day, but either way we?re taking advantage of them because they just read the PIN and confirm it. I did ringtones for a long time, who hasn?t tried them? Sure they?re the least harmful of any of the other offers I?ve mentioned, but it?s still the principle of ripping people off. Crush offers advertise ?You have (2) new crushes!?, so you sign up to find out and just get a retarded horoscope subscription service.

[Pryda]

I agree with you complete. I try to stay away from these kind of scams. I wouldn't be able to sleep well if I did promote them. It's not worth it.

[DWB]

For fucks sake that is retarded.

If you are alive and are a consumer on any level you are supporting someone getting fucked over somewhere. Be it the clothes you are wearing that was made by minors in South East Asia sweat shops or the furniture in your home that was made in a poor country and the workers paid pennies for what they are worth, someone is getting fucked at the expense of your comfortable life.

Before ANYONE cries about ethics in the market place, they need to take a long hard look in the mirror and at the products they own as well as the companies they support in their day to day lives.

Stop the 12 year olds working 12 hour days for $2 first THEN worry about online consumers who fall for dating scams.

[BradM]

Hey, I am promoting that green tea offer right now and making bank!

[XXXMovie4M]

all is fair game that pays the bills!

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its kind of a cool stance from somebody that makes a lot of money and realizes his change in position will cost him revenue. In my experience, once somebody gets used to making a certain level of income, they will fight tooth and nail to keep it, rationalizing the methods used. i remember reading a post by serge birbrair (big traffic broker in the late 90s connected to crescent x publishing) where he basically rationalized sending surfers to sites to get screwed because it teaches them a lesson and prevents them from getting tricked out of much more money later.

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Originally Posted by DirtyWhiteBoy

Stop the 12 year olds working 12 hour days for $2 first THEN worry about online consumers who fall for dating scams.

hey man, $2 is a lot of money in some parts of the world

[jcsike]

Originally Posted by BradM

Hey, I am promoting that green tea offer right now and making bank!

boycott bradm

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