This is something that all magazines do.
Most magazines rely on advertising, yes.
The relationship between editorial and advertising varies considerably, and ultimately has a bearing on how other advertisers perceive your readership. You wouldn't even see it in an advertorial that was produced by nonstaffers and inserted in the NY Times, even though advertorials have nothing to do with fair and detached reporting. The idea of directly linking the reader to reams of company information and propaganda is excellent from an editorial standpoint, I think, if you do it on an equal basis for all the companies in a category you're reviewing whether or not they are paid advertisers. Provide a link to all the home pages of all the makers of email software that have one. Presumably not if they think that your editorial is drawing readers they want to reach.