I didn't take that as their implication at all. To me it was a rhetorical question of "are you really saying that it would be unethical?" with the obvious answe

I didn't take that as their implication at all. To me it was a rhetorical question of "are you really saying that it would be unethical?" with the obvious answer being no. As in not questioning the concept of ethics as a whole, but their relevance to this situation. Do you really see this as an ethical issue? As far as I'm aware most laws around what information you can trade on aren't about morality, they're a pragmatic move to ensure a fat financial sector. By restricting the ways in which you can obtain information it opens the field for more players and more speculation. Reducing accuracy of prices in favour of robustness and liquidity. Sure there's exceptions. One could argue that because they've made an agreement, there's a moral obligation for a company executive to look out for their shareholders interests and front-running trades that hurt them would be a dick move. Other situations though? A hedge fund buying polling information? There's no agreement they're breaking there. They're just beating competitors in a zero sum game, with the externality being that markets are more accurate than they otherwise would have been.