Blatant Spam Vs Sneaky Spam

It would be nice if everyone who visits a blog and leaves a comment does it within some general guidelines and moral rules. Since that is not the case, however, bloggers sometimes need to delete inappropriate remarks. Once upon a time, I may have been so straight-laced that I would have considered editing out a post just because the visitor used poor grammar. Times change and rules relax. Even now, if it is a friend, I will just fix it. If a stranger leaves something inappropriate or nasty or disparaging of others, that is a no-brainer. That gets deleted in an eyeblink. But what about those borderline cases?

When I first decided to monetize my blog, there was an ongoing debate raging on the internet about whether it was ethical to accept certain kinds of advertising. The controversy wasn't about inappropriate content, but rather it was about selling oneself out to some perceived system. Some of the trouble rested with disclosure.

I thought that the average reader, if there is such a thing, would be intelligent enough to know and understand the difference between idle chit-chat and a sales pitch. I was not interested in trying to make a fortune blogging or in cluttering up my pages with a lot of ads, nor would I under any circumstances accept an ad opportunity for a product or service I found objectionable. On the other hand, I was interested in learning how the whole blogvertizing phenomenon worked, so my first blog was pretty much a test. I wrote some articles, attracted some advertising, disclosed when it was required or seemed appropriate, and didn't do anything to drive traffic. Inevitably, though, a few people started finding me, and eventually I got my first spam comment.

It was discreet and related to my topic and so I left it in place because the service being offered seemed useful, I liked the tone, and the sales pitch was inobtrusive. I was more amused than annoyed to see it there. At least I knew somebody was looking at my blog. Why not let him have a freebie? I

When some of the fuss about disclosure died down, however, and we started using site-wide disclosure instead of a bubble after each article, it became necessary to think about the ethics involved in keeping or deleting comments which are left more to advertise a product or service than to be sociable or intellectural, or add content. Hah! I often promote a product or company just because I like it and want to let others know what is available. Although it was never my intention, some posts ended up being paid ads, whereas some did not. I also realize that many of my posts sound like paid ads when they are not.

In one case, however, I accepted an assignment to comment on the topic "Going to the dentist" and to provide their link somewhere in my post. Shortly after publication, I found a seemingly innocuous comment that would on the surface appear to have been left by an ordinary person. But when I clicked on the link to learn something about my visitor, I was ported directly to the website of a competing dental group. Sneaky? Yes. Clever? Maybe. Unethical? I don't know.

If Dental Group A paid me a small sum to mention them on my blog, is it wrong to allow Dental Group B to come along and hitch a little freebie ride by misusing the comments section? Would it set a bad precedent? Should anybody care? I decided that if the second dental group was right down the street from the first one and trying to steal real-time business from the first, I would have exercised editorial control by taking their comment down immediately. But in this case, the would-be advertiser's offices were several states away. My yardstick became "Was anybody really hurt by this?" Some may disagree or even say that I don't understand how track backs and search engines work (seriously!), but after thinking it through, I decided there was no harm in it.

On the other hand, this did make me think back as to whether any dentist (or a search engine for that matter) ever gave me any kind of freebie. Oh, yes, they used to hand kids lollypops after checkups, and we aptly named those "suckers." It makes a person have to stop and think.