In a post on his blog, Paul Conley takes Ziff Davis to task for allowing the use of Intellitxt inside of its online editorial stories. (See Ziff Davis crosses the ethics line again.) This allows users to click on hypertext that takes them directly to advertisements that are associated with the hypertext-ed words.
Forbes.com tried a similar experiment in 2004 but stopped it after its editors complained (See Forbes.com Nixes Ad Links in Editorial.)
Conley writes that was Ziff Davis is doing goes against ASBPE ethics guidelines. (See American Society of Business Publication Editors Code of Preferred ...)
Conley's post touched off a discussion that includes some in the industry agreeing with him and some disagreeing. The dust-up is detailed in a piece released yesterday by Folio: magazine's Alert newsletter. (See Ziff Davis Caught in Bloggers' Crosshairs.) I'm cited in the piece as stating, among other things, that the practice is bound to cause confusion.
The official statement of ASBPE from its president, Roy Harris, is included at the end of the Folio: article.
No comments:
Post a Comment