Australian Magician Tim Ellis & Ethics

[Guest]

Australian magician, TIM ELLIS ,has set an all time low by secretly embedding names of his competitors on the front page of his web site.[ Black text on black background] Was this an underhanded endeavour to increase hits to his site as a blatant attempt to poach clients??? This is Unbelievabley low. Check out this Aussie magic forum to see the feedback under discussion.

http://www.themagicstore.com.au/forum/ Under general discussion The Ethics of Australian Magicians

[Fred Zimmerman]

This seems to be a tempest in a teapot. This kind of Internet Marketing has been going on for years and is considered widely as "SOP." Companies the world over routinely embed all sorts of searchable terms in their websites.

As far as ethics go, I think the trademark laws are fairly clear. If I am searching for David Copperfield, and in my search results, a link to Australian magician Tim Ellis pops up, am I going to be confused and think, "Oh, I guess in Australia, David Copperfield goes by the name Tim Ellis!"? In other words, am I going to confuse Tim Ellis with David Copperfield? The answer is, "no." There's no brand confusion, and certainly no harm done to David Copperfield's name or brand - we're talking an internet search here.

Now, the CONTENT of the wesbite is another matter.

The content of Tim's Website is certainly specific and cannot be confused for anyone else. And if someone is searching for David Copperfield, a magical entertainer, I don't blame magician's everywhere for wanting their name associated with that search. (I'd like to hear from the Dickens' estate on this as well.)

There are entire job titles that do little more than think up embeddable names to put into websites so search engines find them and offer them up in prime positions.

So, I wouldn't get your panties in a bunch about embedding searcheable terms in a website. It's the CONTENT of the site that truly matters, and in this case, Tim's site is clean.

Fred Zimmerman

[Bill Mullins]

1. I can't find what you're talking about -- Ellis's web page looks pretty clean to me.

2. Is it ethically appropriate to cast aspersions on a magician on a third party website, and say the details are found on a retail site's web page, and that retail site requires that you provide an email address (which surely won't be used for spam . . .) in order to see?

[Dustin Stinett]

Fred and Bill:

Can I ask you gentlemen to repost your responses to this other thread so I can gas this one? (If I could move them I would, but I can't.)

This person started three threads with this subject. Ive deleted one and Id like to delete the other and keep only one open. This one is now locked.

Thanks!
Dustin