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The disagreement is over the definition of "advertisement". Is creating a link to something "advertising" it? If the words were the same, but not hypertext, i
by axusgrad 14y ago
The disagreement is over the definition of "advertisement". Is creating a link to something "advertising" it? If the words were the same, but not hypertext, is it still advertising?
It was kind of funny how most of the page is linked, it's almost hard not to click through to the page selling the book.
For me, linking or "making available" isn't advertising. An advertisement needs to contain content written by an advertiser. Is reviewing a book the same as advertising it?
- ameister14 14y agoReviewing a book is not necessarily the same as advertising it, but most reviews do not directly enable purchase of the products they review. If a reviewer is paid by the distributor of the books or products they review and they directly contribute to the sale of the book, they're marketing the book.
- brown9-2 14y agoReceiving money as a result of the link muddies the waters on any discussion of intent.
- timv 14y agoArguing over the terms is avoiding the crux of the issue. Because (much of) the income for the site came from affiliate links, her revenue was closely tied to what she wrote. And not simply in the "I have to write interesting/helpful things to maintain my readership", but in the "Posting a review of a good book will be financially more beneficial to me than posting a review of bad book". Having those sort of external influences makes it harder to maintain your journalistic integrity. You (are tempted to) get distracted from "which story is best for my readers" to "which story will generate the most income". Having those (undisclosed) external influences, while also being extremely vocal about how external financial motivations are bad for journalism, is hypocritical.