Hey, I'm not pointing the finger at anyone in this thread (either directly or indirectly) with what I'm about to say, but there's a whole lotta high-minded TALK here.

I agree with Vince [Ed: a guy who posted above with a comment about being honest rather than telling everyone how honest you are] (and Descartes), and have long lived by the following:

"Ignore what people SAY, watch only what they DO."

How honest is someone being when they—essentially—spam forums for the backlink, creating a profile they never intend on using; joining a community they never intend on being an active member of?

How honest is someone being when they get their assistant to rewrite a bunch of PLR into something that purports to offer value, but is basically just generic, vague commentary on a topic with nought but a single purpose: to be distributed far and wide to directories for the backlinks and the traffic that the sig-link brings in?

How honest is someone being when they social bookmark all their own sites?

How honest is someone being when they clear cookies, log into a different account and social bookmark all their own sites?

How honest is someone being when they go searching for do-follow blogs to comment on and eschew (or even condemn) no-follow blogs regardless of their quality?

How honest is someone being when they send out a JV email and use the expression "my friend, [Name]"?

How honest is someone being when they make you go through a squeeze page — without any by-pass option — to download the product you just bought? (And often on sites you've bought on via PayPal even though (as far as I'm aware) it's against PayPal's TOS? (Could be wrong about that, though))

How honest is someone being when they join a membership site which is basically access to a set of blog-farms dispersed around the world on different servers in order to game the SERPs?

How honest is someone being when they sell your email address after a period in which you haven't moved to their buyer's list — despite a Privacy Policy that swears black and blue that they absolutely would never do such a thing?

How honest is someone being when they send traffic to a fake "Thank You" page, impying that the visitor is getting in through the back door and getting an illicit deal they really shouldn't be getting?

How honest is someone being when they collect a bunch of RSS feeds and re-route them to an autoblog without even checking whether the feed has been copyrighted?

How honest is someone being when they set up an autoblog?

How honest is someone being when they sell some (most likely, warmed-over PLR) product in a niche that not only do they know nothing about (which in itself is not such a problem), but in a niche that could actually have seriously adverse effects on people's lives (e.g. the "anxiety niche") simply because it's one of those "deperate buyers" markets?

How honest is someone being when they read a bunch of threads here on the Warrior Forum and then repackage it as some breakthrough ebook and sell it as a WSO using the "churn'n'burn"/"pump'n'dump" model of IM (with a string of affiliate promos and PLR articles queued up in the autoresponder)?

How honest is someone being when they do a spot of deliberate and calculated cybersquatting and then do what I basically consider "extorting" the person to whom that domain really should belong?

How honest is someone being when they do a bit of the ol' cookie stuffing routine?

How honest is someone being when they use a fancy piece of software to copy someone else's hard-won keywords from their PPC campaigns? Keywords that they've spent a lot of time, money, and testing whittling down to the ones that convert?

How honest is someone being when they charge $X per month to a subscription newsletter (print, usually) and then [insert conscience assuaging buzzword here --->] "repurpose" the very same content to subscribers of their free email list (that you're removed from as a buyer, but may still be subscribed to under an alias)?

How honest is someone being when they tell you that "Only X-number are going to be sold at this price" yet you find yourself (for whatever weird reason) back on the same sales page two years later only to be confronted with the very same copy? Or that the price is going up soon? Or that (this is my favourite) "charter memberships" are being limited to Y-number of people? Or (another favourite) that the price "could" go up "any time soon"?

How honest is someone being when they get an outsourced assistant to post on forums in their niche and under their name?

How honest is someone being when they send a voice-blast that's set to only roll if an answering machine picks up and which then says "Hey, [Name]! It's TheNightOwl... I must have missed you, man. I was personally ringing to..."?

Cripes! And these are just off the top of my head!

I could go on, but I grow weary of my own cynicism.

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My point is that just about all of these (but not all, in fairness) are more or less accepted (as far as I can see) as being de rigeur in Internet Marketing.

This is without even thinking about all the stuff that is patently dodgy!

Hobbes and Schoepenhauer and the like have long been decried as too pessimistic to be gainful insights into human behaviour, but those who fancy themselves as pragmatists would do well, I think, to take a closer look at whether these guys' (undoubtedly crazily-overly bleak!) picture of the world doesn't resonate with reality.

We prefer, however, to think that unless we're doing one of those patently dodgy things, then we must be honest.

TheNightOwl

P.S. Some folks may be inclined to respond (or retort, even) "Let he who is without sin..."

Sure. Fair point. I never claimed to be all squeaky-clean. I try hard not to be dodgy. But I know I am. Standard delusional ploy of hypocrites the world over.