Pop ups question - is this ethical?

Does the product give you the option to control what goes in the pop-up? Unless you have that, I would say that it would be a bit risky to use. You're right, if someone clicks on your link and they get the pop-up, you would have to tell them where it came from. At the very least, you should be able to brand that pop-up in your own name, so that your end users know that it's from you. If they trust you enough to click on the link you provide them, then they would trust the pop-up too (though it might be annoying as well).

not a nice thing, no... when I used to run my internet marketing website (howtosell.info, now offline) I didn't use pop ups or popunders, and it would have ticked me off to no small degree to discover that someone was creating delayed popups that would seem to appear from my site.

on the other hand I would have appreciated the free traffic, so it's a kind of a trade off. If you find the webmaster that appreciates traffic more than they despise popups then it's fine, if the webmaster knows that a lot of people use ad-blocking software and thinks "hey, free traffic and the readers aren't even annoyed by any popup" all the better, but you might send traffic to some webmaster who would not take it kindly to be considered by users as the creator of that popup.

It's a veeeeery gray area: technically you're not doing anything to their site, there's no hacking or anything inherently "bad" going on. You're providing users with (hopefully) relevant advertising which happens to be delayed in such a way as to appear when interesting content (the articles) is reached.

How the owner of that website might react though cannot be gauged other than by asking them. Some might care more about the traffic than anything else, some others might be living a personal crusade against popups and could hate you for making it look like it's *their* website annoying the reader with a popup ad...

I would say this: if you plan to use it massively it's definitely a more dodgy use of the software. IF you plan on directing people to a dozen websites at the most you can contact the owners and ask them: do you want free traffic? it comes with a popup of targeted relevant ad (again, hopefully! lol), is that ok? yes? no? kthxbai

hope this helps ;-)

ciao!

Yes, Craftziner, it's a pop-up whose content you choose. You can add your affiliate link for a product. In fact, according to the link I was sent, you can even add your own opt-in box. That's got to be wrong - an opt-in box for your own list appearing on someone else's site.

Thanks guys. Your thoughts echo mine.

I'd certainly be very disappointed indeed if anyone visiting one of my sites encountered a pop-up!

I don't know which product you're discussing, here, and I don't know whether or not its ethical, but I honestly wouldn't use it myself, kind of on the "do as you would be done by" principle.

Interesting thread.

I think it's $14.95. How much you make would depend on what you were selling. I understand you can put anything you want in the pop-up.

There are several products that do this and have been around for years.

Just to clarify you are sending someone to your own link so that is the link they are seeing. It is just another website iframed on your domain and thus you can place a popup over that if you like. Is it black hat? No. Is it grey hat? Probably.

It's certainly legal and no problems there. I guess it's up to the individual to decide whether they find it misleading or not.

Thanks for the clarification Will. I should just point out that I wasn't talking about one of Will's products.

anything that is popping out without your expectation is really annoying!