Stop! I've been deceived..

Explain to me the terms of ethical business standards and the ideas behind consumer deception. From my understanding ethics are those things that would prevent an act, decision, or transaction from becoming illegal and/or unsavory in a business practice. For the idea of consumer deception I believe that the consumer will have made a decision that was based on available data and later have learned that the decision was faulty because of mis or dis information. Essentially, what the consumer thought they were getting was completely or partially different from what they actually got.

While the understanding of these two terms may seem like an exercise in futility, it is blatantly apparent to me that many people will use these terms in association with issues that do not necessarily fall within their parameters. For instance, the Internet search engine industry is a huge business. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Dogpile, Excite, and others are making billions of dollars by allowing consumers to use their technology in order to find websites that offer information on their entered quarries.

With a complete understanding of how people use these sites, it must be asked if these same companies are using advertising in an ethical and non-consumer deceptive form? Why should it be important for consumers to know who or what is considered an advertisement? Obviously there are a plethora of responses that can be had if this were an open forum, but the only true answer should be that it isn’t important.

Consumers are exposed to paid and unpaid advertisements in many places on a daily basis. Why should the Internet be any different? It shouldn’t be and that is the point! As consumers make free quarries (remember, consumers don’t associate a cost with a quarry because they are not being charged), isn’t is acceptable to believe that the companies that paid a fee for inclusion when certain words were sought, that they should be held in higher standing than those that were simply web crawled with spiders? Also, isn’t it true that most consumers have a predetermined idea of what they are looking for, as well as a personal evoked set of brands?

The entire situation boils down to one thing; that is the consumer ultimately has the ability to make the final decision on which link to click. This action alone falls within the boundaries of fair play and ethical operations. Why should sites that pay for inclusion be ostracized with a label when other sites (who did not pay for inclusion, but are still included) are not?

I find this to be a terribly misguided perspective and believe that labeling has only a negative impact on the perceptions that consumers have. Indirectly this type of action can damage an advertising opportunity. In my opinion the only deceptive and unethical act that will come from this will result in a negative action against those sites/brands/products that can pay for inclusion.

Thoughts?

Matt