Or letting a particular ski resort sell discount advance lift tickets on the ski report page whenever it gets 2 inches or more of new powder. Other instances do pose some ethical concerns, but as I explained earlier in this discussion, this is where explanations of policies and strict guidelines come into play. Taken in a vacuum, these give the appearance of advertising influencing editorial. Displayed adjacent to a clearly stated policy about such advertising, they can be acceptable. Allowing a politician to buy an ad linking to his Web site that gets placed next to articles that mentions him is stepping over the line of acceptability, of course.
Business sits somewhere in between.
All news site publishers must decide for themselves where to draw the line. My message is that contextual transaction advertising on the Web can be done ethically. Eric's concerns are valid and should be addressed before embarking on contextual transaction advertising experiments, but a blanket prohibition is not necessary. I'd like to thank Eric Meyer for being a good sport and participating in this exercise. I don't think that he and I are that far apart in our views.