How low can you go?

Integrity. Funny thing integrity. Good old Wikipedia describes it as a 'consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles. Integrity may be seen as the quality of having a sense of honesty and truthfulness in regard to the motivations for one's actions'.

The problem is, if you compromise your integrity you enter the realms of hypocrisy, and once you've lost integrity, that's it, it's gone forever. I like to think of this as the Bill Hicks rule, following on from his famously acerbic challenge to marketeers 'Kill yourselves'! Not wanting to compromise my own integrity and end up, as Bill so eloquently described, 'sucking Satan's scaly cock' (nice), I've always ignored the constant requests I receive from web-advertisers to place paid links on this blog. This is also because they usually want to advertise cheap flights! I mean really, no sense of irony...

But, recently intrigued by one particular request, and having discussed the dubious nature of paid, placed ads with one of mates at work, I followed up on one, just to see where it would go. 'What's the harm in a discretely placed ad for a mobile phone?' you may think...well, here's the evidence below! It's not just a link, they want you to be their bitch, lie through your own arse and endorse a product you don't even have! Outrageous! Check out the 'seamless' suggested insertion of a new second paragraph below and compare it with my usual writing style for starters! So sorry Claire...if you're reading this, which you probably are, the answer is 'no thanks'. This site will remain ad-free and I'll keep my integrity, and the trust of my readers, intact ta very much.

Email from Claire at www.linkstar.co.uk

Hi Ed!

Our client is O2, UK's leading provider in mobile and broadband needs, and below are the details needed to put the link up:

I'd like the text-link advertisement on the following internal page of your site:
http://www.lowcarbontravel.com/2008/02/sunny-san-salvador.html

Anchor Text: mobile broadband

Anchor Text URL: http://broadband.o2.co.uk/mobile

Location: New Second Paragraph

New Second Paragraph:
'The photo on the right side was taken with the mobile broadband phone I had purchased, which was equipped with a 5-megapixel camera. Thank God I didn't have to bring an SLR camera which I was seriously considering. After having seen the gritty side of El Salvador which I enjoyed very much, a camera phone that takes quality pictures is good enough!'

I've contributed a new paragraph to your article (it was a delightful read by the way) so that the two-word text link can blend naturally (!?) into your web page and not look inorganically inserted. I believe this will benefit the visitors of your site =) Please let me know when the link is up and running so that I could make the payment asap.

Also, if you have other sites where we could purchase links, please do let me know. I'm sure an experienced webmaster such as yourself definitely has several quality sites that can match our clients' needs =)

Thanks so much, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers!
Claire =)


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