[jbolte1976]

Swine Flu is now front and center on every news publication out there. I saw a raging debate at another forum about the ethics around profiting on this latest disease. What's your opinion?

The site in question simply offers up a completely free Swine flu report, no opt-in, and it gives simple advice and provides links to things like flu masks, etc (Amazon affiliate links of course). His / Her report has several disclaimers that the contents are only advice and nothing more.

My opinion is this is ethical, especially how they went about it.... Free, he protected himself the best he could with disclaimers and he never claimed to provide a "cure" for the swine flu or anything close to it, only advice.

What do you guys think? My only concern would be to ensure that I have done absolutely everything possible to protect myself legally. Including disclaimers, business setup protection through a s-corp, LLC, etc and of course more disclaimers.


What are your thoughts? Do you think it's ethical to cash in on something like the swine flu?




Jason

[Admin]

Hey Jason,

There's no problem with it being ethical or not. He's covered, and so are you. It's like anything else in the medical/health niche at the moment.

The main thing to remember is that hot niches are mostly short term. The sites will remain up, but products being sold in a market like this will sell mainly when the topic is boiling hot.

So, if you are going to put a site up about it, make sure you do it quickly, and get some very good content up fast too. This will give you a jump.

[jbolte1976]

Originally Posted by Admin

So, if you are going to put a site up about it, make sure you do it quickly, and get some very good content up fast too. This will give you a jump.

I'm not looking to jump on stuff like that (at this point anyway), although down the road after I've gotten more proficient at getting some good content put together and putting up an attractive site quickly, I won't hesitate. I looked at this as a white hot niche about 2 weeks ago or whenever it was first making local and national news.

Like you said, you've got to really jump on this quick to make the most of the fear and not to mention the media really can be on your side. I think they tend to pump this stuff up. Especially if it's bad news.

Maybe I'll jump on the goat flu or puppy flu or whatever pandemic comes up next (not to make light of a sickness, but you know what I mean).

Jason

[MikeGriffith]

Hi J
I think that much of the hype about swine flu has its roots in "profit."
Even though this site didn't require opt-ins and gave some good advice,
it could have made money from the links it provided.

But I see nothing wrong with that because "profit" is not a bad word
-- which means I agree with you that it was ethical.

[Admin]

Hi Mike,

I believe you're right. Lol it's like anything else in this business.

Btw, welcome to the forum!

Did you get that email I sent you, and did it help?

Thanks ...

[stellarmajyk]

I don't think it is unethical to create informational sites about current trends in health, wealth or life. I think providing good helpful information about health precautions is what the internet should be about.