Stealth Marketing Unethical?

arsTechnica has an article about the FTC issue of a public statement coming out against so called "stealth marketing" where people participate in the marketing of a product on behalf of a company without being aware of the fact that it is a marketing effort. Essentially this is viral marketing used in what the FTC deems an unethical way. A consumer group called for them to investigate it, but they declined. This draws a very fine line from my perspective of what is considered ethical and what isn't. The arsTechnica post specifically references the Sony PSP site I listed a few days ago. I don't really see a problem with that. In some of the examples the FTC cited, I can see a possible conflict. But I would hate to see viral story sites fall into the unethical category. They aren't really asking people to do anything, it's more just a storyline people are following. No one believes everything they read online, as long as a site doesn't try to pass itself off as official, I don't see why it would be misleading in a harmful way.

Pick on Sony day

Sony has its share of problems and has made lots of mistakes. I wonder if the fuss over this is just jumping on the anti-Sony bandwagon or if people really find this tactic offensive. It's not much different than the marketing campaigns I mentioned a few days ago. I still feel that when done right, it's an incredible way to market. Perhaps the difference is that the other campaigns were so over the top that people didn't feel silly for believing it? The LonelyGirl15 thing caused a fuss when the truth came out, but I don't think it put an end to it. Some people were upset, but overall her fans got over it and enjoyed it as the soap opera it is.