Internet and Advertisement

Abstract

The Internet has revolutionized the way knowledge is currently produced, stored and disseminated. A few finger clicks on a keyboard can save time and many hours of search in libraries or shopping in stores. Online trademarks with an (e-) prefix such as e-Library, eBusiness, e-Health etc., are increasingly part of our daily professional vocabularies. However, the Internet has also produced multiple negative side effects, ranging from an unhealthy dependency to a dehumanization of human relationships. Fraudulent, unethical and scam practices are also flourishing through for example misleading online advertising methods. Some social and professional networks gather users' profiles for selling and advertising purposes, sometimes by making it technically difficult to unsubscribe. Here, I discuss some of these unethical aspects and propose some potential solutions to reduce them.Keywords: online advertising, misleading advertising, internet misuse, advertising ethics, misleading advertisement, social network, professional network.The Internet is one of the most impressive inventions in history. The list of online based services is getting longer every day in most professional and entertainment fields. Almost each real life activity has now its virtual counterpart on the Internet by simply adding the prefix (e-) to get an established online equivalent, such as e-commerce, e-book, e-bank, e-library, e-ticket, e-learning, e-shopping, etc.). Indisputably, the Internet has facilitated the communication and the diffusion of knowledge worldwide in an unprecedented way, turning upside down the notion of time and distance. Conversely, the internet has also opened large windows for all kinds of unethical and cheating practices, ranging from dependency and addiction (Shaw and Black 2008) to complex frauds and scams. Entire businesses models have been built online and operate with or without ethical rules. Among these, intemperate and annoying advertising practices where online pages are increasingly flooded with all kinds of advertisements (ads) that dilute the information flow and distract readers from their reading focus. The Internet has become one of the most effective mass platforms for the direct-to-consumer advertising services to advertise any sort of beneficial or harmful, useful or useless products.

Internet health scams—Developing a taxonomy and risk‐of‐deception assessment tool

“…Search terms included terms such as “health, internet, e‐mail and web,” meshed with searches for “fraud, scam, deception, sham, con, cheat” and similar words. Although no specific research on the phenomenon was identified, a number of papers identified various forms of Internet‐based misinformation in a variety of fields (Higgins et al, ; Mackey & Liang, ; Mitchell, Becker‐Blease, & Finkelhor, ; Morris & Avorn, ; Moustafa, ; Ross, ; Williams, Karousou, & Mackness, ). Additional items of potential interest were identified through a request for information from the panel, asking them to report IHS activities they had observed within their own fields.…”

With professional overexposure, how to protect yourself from litigation?

“…Even though the Internet brought many positive aspects to dental practice, fraudulent and unethical advertisement are growing, as for example, false advertising 2 and those that disobey the professional principles of ethics and code of conduct. In Brazil, we do not have such data, but due to the most recent negative happenings, the professional overexposure in social media is hitting the headlines of the main newspapers in the country.…”

“…Apesar da internet ter trazido inúmeros aspectos positivos, mecanismos de divulgação fraudulenta e antiética estão crescendo, como, por exemplo, a propaganda enganosa 2 e aquela que fere os códigos de ética do exercício profissional. Para o Brasil, desconhecemos esses dados; mas, devido aos recentes acontecimentos negativos, o grau de superexposição dos profissionais de saúde nas redes sociais está sendo matéria de primeira página nos principais jornais do país 3 .…”