Divers come to Scuba Board every day looking for advice on scuba gear and services. When they do, they get immediate advice from expert divers, which is one of the best services a site like this provides. But some of that advice might not be from the most unbiased sources in the world. To what degree would you believe a source if you knew the writer was being paid to give you that advice?
I know someone whose previous job was in marketing, and one part of his daily work was going to product review web sites and writing reviews—positive ones for the those paying him, and negative ones for their competition. Knowing that, I take all those reviews with a large chunk of salt.
Over the years, ScubaBoard has had many a thread explode with anger when a poster writing to praise or attack a certain product or service was revealed to have a direct financial connection to the topic being discussed. Those threads become understandably ugly but they are fortunately rare. On the other hand, I suspect such posting may be happening more often than we realize, and it can have a truly detrimental effect on the overall quality of the service ScubaBoard provides.
A former frequent poster on ScubaBoard once used to praise certain products and services while strongly condemning the competition, and eventually we learned that he was being paid to do it. There are some other ScubaBoard posters whose advice is so immediate and so predictable that I cannot help but feel there has to be some sort of financial arrangement going on there as well. Once those posts are made, if another product is mentioned, the poster will often make sure people know what is wrong with the competing product. If we are talking about an objective belief, that is one thing; if we are talking about a paid endorsement, it is quite another.
Most scuba professionals get some sort of discount for the gear they purchase—I myself rarely pay full price for anything, and if you see me dive, nearly everything you will see me wear was purchased at a deep discount from the manufacturer. That is to be expected, just as you expect ski instructors to get a discount on the equipment they use. That is not what I am talking about, though. That is different from posing as an objective reviewer and actively hawking that gear in exchange for some form of compensation.
In terms of ethics, any poster who has any sort of arrangement with anyone or any product they are endorsing should make that perfectly clear. That can either be stated in the message, or it can be CLEARLY identified in the signature line, but readers should know that this arrangement exists. It is simply the right thing to do.
I know someone whose previous job was in marketing, and one part of his daily work was going to product review web sites and writing reviews—positive ones for the those paying him, and negative ones for their competition. Knowing that, I take all those reviews with a large chunk of salt.
Over the years, ScubaBoard has had many a thread explode with anger when a poster writing to praise or attack a certain product or service was revealed to have a direct financial connection to the topic being discussed. Those threads become understandably ugly but they are fortunately rare. On the other hand, I suspect such posting may be happening more often than we realize, and it can have a truly detrimental effect on the overall quality of the service ScubaBoard provides.
A former frequent poster on ScubaBoard once used to praise certain products and services while strongly condemning the competition, and eventually we learned that he was being paid to do it. There are some other ScubaBoard posters whose advice is so immediate and so predictable that I cannot help but feel there has to be some sort of financial arrangement going on there as well. Once those posts are made, if another product is mentioned, the poster will often make sure people know what is wrong with the competing product. If we are talking about an objective belief, that is one thing; if we are talking about a paid endorsement, it is quite another.
Most scuba professionals get some sort of discount for the gear they purchase—I myself rarely pay full price for anything, and if you see me dive, nearly everything you will see me wear was purchased at a deep discount from the manufacturer. That is to be expected, just as you expect ski instructors to get a discount on the equipment they use. That is not what I am talking about, though. That is different from posing as an objective reviewer and actively hawking that gear in exchange for some form of compensation.
In terms of ethics, any poster who has any sort of arrangement with anyone or any product they are endorsing should make that perfectly clear. That can either be stated in the message, or it can be CLEARLY identified in the signature line, but readers should know that this arrangement exists. It is simply the right thing to do.
