Defining Amazonian Ethics

Many blogs and websites—Gelf included—make money when people buy Amazon products off of our sites. What is our responsibility to our readers—and to the other websites—in terms of disclosure, transparency, and credit-sharing?

David Goldenberg

Rich Lafferty recently wrote an incredibly well-read post on his blog Rich Text about the most expensive items on Amazon.com. It was linked from popular blogs and message boards, including The Consumerist, Metafilter, Boing Boing, and Instapundit. And if just one rich reader decides to buy, say, a leather-bound, $40,000 book about Super Bowl XL, or perhaps a $17,500 violin-playing robot, Lafferty himself is in line to collect a four-figure check from Amazon. Or maybe not. Here's why: