August 7th 2009

The Ethics of Education and Promotion

If you have an educational site, is it ethical to promote items on the site that you profit from, or is that a compromise of your informational integrity?

I have a business educational site. The purpose of the site is to promote scam awareness, educate people about what helps them really earn, and how to spot a good program or a bad one, the advantages of independent business endeavors, etc.

I have two clients that offer multi-level distributorship programs. There is no charge for either one. Both are ethical and have a good chance of returning a profit if someone works them.

I’ve toyed with the idea of joining both just for signups and sponsorships. One of them would require that I purchase items at least for my own use. They are items I am likely to use anyway. The other would not require purchases, and would allow me to function purely as a recruiter.

One consideration is TIME. Do I want to invest the time to really make them work. Since I have outlets that would allow me to plug in information to existing channels, I think it could work without undue effort.

The major consideration though, is ethics. Is it ethical for me to promote specific programs and profit for them on a site that purports to be unbiased?

The thing I’ve learned is that this is what people WANT. When they come to a “build a business” site, they want to be told, “Here are some honest choices.”

But I still wrestle with it. Still unsure of whether it lowers my credibility and makes me just another “work at home” site that exists to promote a program instead of to benefit the end user.

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