Ponder this. Surely you've seen ads for pharmaceutical companies in print magazines. There is a full page ad for the product and then, as required by the FDA, a page or two of disclosures and warning statements that read something like this:

In certain individuals this product has been shown to cause projectile vomiting, cramping, painful hemorrhoidal tissues, painful perineal oozing boils , dyspepsia, incontinence, nail fungus, colo-rectal inflammation, reverse peristalsis, indigestion, nausea, hallucinations, sinusitus, ingrown nasal hairs, cardiac arrythmia, hypertension, bronchial constriction, sensitivity to light, joint pain, flatulence, septicemia, loss of balance, delusions of grandeur...

You get the idea, and yes--I made some of that stuff up myself.

Now, what if a similar disclosure requirement were initiated for product vendors in the IM niche. In other words, what if they were required to reveal the true nature of their products in a disclosure statement that appeared at the bottom of their sales pages? Gads! Their disclosure statements might look like this...

Following the directions in this product could well get your accounts at ezinearticles, articlesbase, buzzle, helium, goarticles, articlesnatch, articlealley, articledashboard, ideamarketers, isnare, searchwarp,, articlecity, sooperarticles, articleclick, articlerich, articlecube, articlestars, submityourarticle, abcarticledirectory, articlecompilation, articlesfactory, articlepool, articleslash, upublish, acmearticles, articlenexus.com13, thewhir, articlecentral, articlesalley, fourpxarticles, articlebliss, articlecell, 365articles, Blogger, Weblogs, Inc, BlogCode: BlogCode, blo.gs, BlogLines, Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit: Reddit, StumbleUpon, Blinklist, Techcrunch, Furl, Spurl, Trailfire, Wetpaint, YouTube, Vimeo, Mixx, Feedburner, PinGoat, Ping-O-Matic, FeedShark, Clipmarks, Magnolia, Digg, Propeller, Socialogs, Indianpad, Technorati, Slashdot, Diigo, Wirefan, Bibsonomy, Blinklist, Blogmemes, Bluedot, Myjeeves, Backflip, CraigsList,, Netvouz, Folkd, Blinkbits, Plugim, Linkagogo, Mister-wong, Connotea, Thoof, Corank, Megite, Yample, Squidoo, Taggly, Tagza, Dzone, Dropjack, A1-webmarks, Buddymarks, Bookmarktracker, Fark, Connectedy, Mylinkvault, Tumblr, Searchles, Bringr, Searchallinone, Marktdf, Postonfire, MyOpera, My YaHoo, YaHoo Groups, Plime, and Boosch locked, frozen, or abolished.

Our sales page states that only 300 copies of this product will be sold. That's an outright lie. In fact, we expect to sell over 1,000 units in the first 24 hours after the launch and an additional 6,000 units within the following week. Only a dumb ass would believe that we will limit the sales to 300 units.

Some of our screen shots showing earnings have been doctored to reflect forward-looking earning projections that very few, if any, individuals purchasing this product might achieve.

All of the testimonials shown on our sales page come from JV partners who have vested interests in increasing the sales of the product. Most were written by our partners who have not only never tried the product, but who have never even seen the product in its entirety. And the earnings they claim to have made after they did receive the product are no more than their normal earnings they achieve during any similar period.

While our sales page says that only 17 units are left and you must order today, this is a digital product and unlimited units can be delivered within any time frame. If you come back in 30 days you will see the same "Only 17 units left" statement at the bottom of the page.

We cannot sell this product to customers in Texas, California, New York, Maine, Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Oregon, Indiana, Montana, and Maryland (pending attorney general ruling) and an FTC litigation.

While we say that we offer exceptional 24/7 customer support, our support team consists of my child's 13 year old babysitter who will respond through re-Tweets from her Twitter account. (She has over 82,000 Twitter followers!)

We do not offer refunds as the refund rate for our last product launched exceeded 46%. We simply cannot make a fair ROI if we generate refunds for everyone who requests one. We hope you can appreciate our position.

NOTE ON OUT BONUSES: All of the "exclusive" bonuses offered with this product are actually part of a PLR package we picked up for only $15 and represent products the original developer was unable to make a profit with because the refund rates were excessive.

We do apologize for the 11 exit pop-ups we use to promote our up-sells but it does increase out bottom line by nearly 60%. And the $295 OTO we hit you with after your initial sale, well--we try our best to make you feel that the original product is dysfunctional without the OTO offered. After all, we have already got your money for the initial sale, so we believed you were not only gullible enough to get that product, but stupid enough to go for the overpriced OTO as well.

The good news is that if you opt in to our list from the pop-up on our sales page, it is unlikely you will be getting a ton of email marketing junk from us. You see the FTC requires auto-responder services to report accounts with excessive complaint and unsubscribe rates, and well--with a complaint rate approaching 18%, we got nailed on that one. Hope to be able to export our list to a less ethical service who will let us slip by in spite of our complain rates.

And yes, if you do install our secret software on your computer, it will execute a data acquisition subroutine that will collect information on you, your browsing habits, bookmarks and pass it back to us every time you get online.

Aside from these minor discrepancies between our sales page and our actual product--most of what we claim is pretty close to being truthful and honest.

If you have any problem with our sales copy, contact our copywriter to whom we paid $15,000 for the copy. We told him to put all of that bull **** in the copy, and in his agreement with us he gets a percentage of the total sales--and he'll say anything to make a buck.

Now, there is obviously no such pending law that would require Internet marketers to make such disclosure statements. But what if there was?

And--while we are all guilty of guru bashing because of their somewhat deceptive sales copy tactics, were we in their shoes would we do anything different?

If the opportunity to you arose to make a Faustian deal with the devil in which you could do what you do now and make $25,000 a year selling your stuff, or--make $1.5 million dollars by bending, stretching, and twisting the truth a bit, would you take it? Are you sure? I'd think about that for a while, and a while longer before you answer.

If you could make your real life exceed the life of your dreams, would you be willing to cross a line in the sand you have drawn which represented the ethical constructs by which you had previously lived?

Think about your spouse, your children, maybe an aging parent living on social security who can't afford the meds required to give them the quality-of-life factor they deserve in their later years. Are you still sure you wouldn't accept the above proposition?

"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion." ~Voltaire