How to make money online: my experiments with new ways of publishing

I'm a publisher. I chose to work ethically. This means I may earn less that other less-honest publishers, but I get to sleep at night. On my (non Hubpages) commercial services I publish news-only - no advertisements at all.
I came to Hub pages, to experiment with new ways of publishing.
How to hub truthfully: I'm here to experiment, because I feel a deep interest in the model - the way Hubs work, the way the Internet works.
Thinking, thinking: I get to think a lot about the line between the truth and the lie, in internet content. That's because my customers buy news with no advertisements; they buy guaranteed independent, truthful news.
My Hubpages experiment: I ask myself:

1. when does "great content" turn into deceptive tactics?
2. when does a "great hub" morph into a hub which under US Federal Trade Commission, FTC rules; "fails to adequately disclose their lack of objectivity and their financial incentive to get consumers to buy the products"?

How to find the truth: The Internet has many, many fakes - well disguised - by public relation agencies, intelligence agencies, and people who sell stuff; ideas, things, and weight loss miracles. How to write and publish with the moral compass, set right?
Rules made to help consumers: Governments try to protect citizens through laws to control the use of advertising on the Internet. In the USA, Section 5 of the FTC Act declares unfair or deceptive acts or practices, unlawful.
Truth and lies: For example in print or the Internet, a publisher can lie, to make things attractive or to make money (and in the publishing world, we call that kind of paid fakery, "advertorial").
The role of context: Or, a publisher can place things in a context which make the product look reliable. That's called "endorsement".
The most powerful endorsement: The most powerful endorsement of all is to get the product promoted by an independent source.
Examples: Two of the areas where the US Federal Trade Commission, FTC, has taken people to court this year, were information sites (Hubs!) with claims of dramatic weight loss - claims by taking acai berry supplements and a "colon cleanser", rapid weight loss would follow. It was not so much the claims - they maybe were true- a laxative will make you "lose weight". The FTC was not happy with way the claims were presented, as independent news, in a non-advertising format.
When advertising is good: Some magazines - take Vogue for example, can consist of almost all advertising. We know its advertising. So that's a kind of information.
When everyone has the powers of Rupert Murdoch: Rupert Murdoch' newspapers face deep problems as advertising income moves to the net. It's a massive media shift.
Being Rupert: On the Internet, in the new world everyone has the powers of Rupert Murdoch.

Risks of breaking the law: It's the devious hidden Internet advertisement that looks like news or independent advice that lawyers warn about.
One of those lawyers explains how: I have never met Francine W. Breckenridge of Strasburger & Price LLP. But she has some things to say about risks of breaking the law with what the USA Federal Trade Commission called "unfair or deceptive advertising and marketing practices". What she has to say will interest Hubbers, as it appears to relate to risk of action by the Federal Trade Commission against some Internet publishers for deceptive market practices on the Internet.
Deceptive tags may attract legal action: The "colon cleanser" test case may set a precedent. For example the tag weight loss and dramatic weight loss, appears on Hubpages - and the Internet, many times. It's used by high-earning Hubs. The same applies to the tag Acne, for example.
Can a tag break the law? The 'colon cleaner" sites also tagged names and logos of media: ABC, Fox News, CBS, CNN, USA Today, and Consumer Reports.
Test case: For example the Federal Trade Commission has taken the "colon cleanser" group of Internet marketeers to the courts. Read about that here. That case may relate to Hubbing. The FTC planned to stop allegedly deceptive tactics of 10 operations using fake news websites to market acai berry weight-loss products. In a "Fake News Site Sweep " the FTC set ten Internet marketeers before the courts. Those publishers used ads on search engines and high volume websites, to drive traffic to the fake news sites and then to sales action by the consumer.
Sound familiar? Under another name its called affiliate marketing and a practice I see on some money-making hubs.

Here's what could go wrong if you cross the line: One day, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) knocks on Your Fabulous Hub door.
The law: FTC guidelines on advertisement endorsements and testimonials require employees promoting or endorsing company products or services to clearly and conspicuously disclose their employment relationship.
Failure to do so imposes liability on the endorser AND the company for failing to disclose material connections (which includes employment relationships) existing between endorsers and the companies about whom they comment. Since these guidelines specifically include social networking, and Your Fabulous Hub an FTC endorsement action could potentially be brought against Your Fabulous Hub because its loyal employees commented on company products or services without disclosing their employment relationship.

Lesson learned: Employees can promote and endorse Your Fabulous Hub all they want as long as they clearly and conspicuously disclose that they are Your Fabulous Hub employees. Moreover, if you, as The Best Boss In The World, actually pay an employee to endorse Your Fabulous Hub, the employee must also disclose that he/she is being paid for the endorsement. If not, then you are at risk of breaking the law, as described by John D. Dingell Chairman Committee on Energy and Commerce U.S. House of Representatives. He tells how Section 5 of the FTC Act declares unfair or deceptive acts or practices, unlawful.

Here's an example of a recent bid on Freelancer.com for fake traffic-driving "endorsements". This person is offering contract work, online.

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copied text begins

"Hi - My goal is to drive traffic from HIGHLY RELEVANT blogs, forums and wellness sites to my product selling pages. I am in need of a forum and blog poster to assist in increasing traffic and establishing (some) high value backlinks to one of my web sites.

1. The idea is that you will familiarize yourself with the subject matter of the web site:

2. visit forums and blogs that are related to my site's niche, and

3. post a unique and informative entry to the forum or blog while including a link to either the home page or an interior page of my site.

   Deliverables:

. 40 high quality links or references to my web site resulting from natural sounding forum and blog posts to web sites of at least Google pagerank . A minimum of 20 of the links should point to my home page, the rest can be interior pages or our FB page. . A weekly report providing links to the pages or posts that you created. You will be paid based on this weekly report, so it's important that none of your posts are removed. . A spreadsheet showing the accounts you created, passwords, etc. for the posts. How you will be paid: You will receive 20% of your bid for each 10 posts that you create and submit to me in your weekly reports. If any of your posts are removed due to inappropriate conduct or policy violations, they will not count. The final 20% will be paid out when I verify that total active links at week 10.

copied text ends

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Some serious advice: I was struck by the advice of Lawyer Francine W. Breckenridge of Strasburger & Price LLP USA: In essence this is how I understand what she says:

1. If you pay freelancers to drive traffic to your hub to increase its ranking; and
2. don't tell the world you paid for that service, you may break the law.

I see a lot of chatter about how to do this - drive traffic to your hub - on Hubpages. I also see it as rampant practice by some high volume publishers. These publishers pay others to write their sets of hubs and sites. I have provided an example, above.
You can see this practice, too, if you read the work-bids by some Hubbers at http://freelancer.com
Anti-cheating law: The anti-cheating law Francine W. Breckenridge talks about, also applies in Australia. In Australia it's the Trade Practice law managed by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission.
What-if you pay people to drive traffic to your hubs: Lawyer Francine W. Breckenridge of Strasburger & Price LLP USA, gives this example of how - if you pay a person to drive traffic to your site you may break the law - if you don't clearly and conspicuously disclose the fact they they get paid to rave about your hub (that is, backlink) on tweets, Facebook and 1001 chitty-chat forums.
Best Boss In The World! - analogy: Breckenridge put it this way: Your employees love your hub!. So, what do your employees do? You pay them to love your hub.
They brag! They tweet! They say Your Fabulous Hub is the best dang hub in town. And so they should - as you pay them to say that. They get paid to create natural-looking links and comments all over the internet. And they all link to your Your Fabulous Hub. It roars up the rankings, the money pours in; you get thousands of hits an hour. You retire to the Bahamas.
They Facebook for you: They say that if people go any where else than Your Fabulous Hub they will be SO disappointed.
In my humble opinion: They IMHO that cool people go to Your Fabulous Hub
As their boss, you love your employees for promoting Your Fabulous Hub and increasing sales. But go too far, and you break the law.

1. If you pay freelancers to drive traffic to your hub to increase its ranking; and
2. don't tell the world you paid for that service, you may break the law.

The Federal Trade Commission FTC’s online Complaint Assistant