It’s not surprising that marketers love IntelliTxt while many journalists despise it. AlwaysOn columnist Rafe Needleman called IntelliTxt “pretty bad news” from an ethics standpoint “because it blurs the line between editorial content, which readers should expect to be free of commercial influence, and advertising, which we know is paid-for and biased.” —Adam L. Penenberg —This Headline Is Not for Sale (Wired)
The “IntelliTxt” ad service inserts inline links into the body of a news article. I’d agree that this oversteps a line, potentially blurring what should be a pretty clear boundary between editorial content and paid advertising.
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Chuck, I don't think Intelltxt is something that's downloaded on your computer so it affects every page you view, but I can imagine sneakware that does something like that.
Actually, I just read the article more carefully, and my situation was something different because I wasn't creating the links. But this is certainly inappropraitely blurring a boundary between advertising and editorial content.
I *think* my office computer was hit by something like IntelliTxt. I'd go to my blog and certain keywords (a movie title, the word "travel") were highlighted with links to a movie website or a travel agent website. Very annoying and frightening.