What's to stop some marketing person coming on here, posting a few times and getting their name known, then starting a thread advertising their product?

[Pruni]

Message withdrawn

nothing
there are a few posters who advertise subtly - they are agents for such and such a company and are always posting free codes, that sort of thing

Yeah Robinsons Fruit Shoots do it all the time.

Message withdrawn

Surely any exposure is good. Even if were all going "oh no what a gross bikini" we've all looked at that website, and possibly shown it to others.

Message withdrawn

Haven't seen the one about laser eye surgery Pruni but I do know a bit about it. Personally, I'd avoid big high street chains and do lots of research, inerviewing a number of surgeons about their training, qualifications and experience and particularly their outcome measures for sight in my range -not overall outcome, can be very misleading. And I'd look at the detail of outcomes - things the profession tends to describe as 'minor' can be life-changing if it's your eyesight that is affected. Glare can mean never being able to drive at night ever again, for instance. Dry eyes can mean having to use eye drops continually throughout the day.

Message withdrawn

Now I'm getting paroinoid that every link I've checked out was just advertising.

I thought anyone advertsising had to post an ad and pay £30? Or do you mean name dropping and the like?

I think its ok for people to respond to threads telling people about their product - eg "Who knows of some good tote bags I can buy?" to which someone might reply - 'oh, I make some and here they are'. ..but not starting a thread about their product/business.

I have recently bought something from someone and of course, I searched her nickname. She only posts on the for sale boards and I was mildly annoyed at this. However, the item was nice. I don't like the idea that people use these boards just to sell as that is what the founders of mumsnet live on, the advertising.

can i have the recipe without the bag...?

hmm, I always thought the 'for sale' boards were just for 2nd hand stuff - that poster should place an ad UCM, I agree. Or do you mean someone flogs all their 2nd hand stuff on MN but never posts otherwise? Confused now!

it's usually quite obvious when someone is actually advertising, so although there's nothing to stop someone doing it I think it's rare that they're subtle enough to pull it off

I have reported quite a few posts like this (i.e ones that I reckon are people trying to hide an advert) to MNet in a sucky up kind of way

Yes, this particular one does, so do many people but because most of MN doesn't have for sale in their search anymore, they don't realise.

That one caught my eye too pruni, because it raved so much about 'it' rather than anything else.

Because you have all stopped looking at the for sale board (sorry, I should have worded this correctly the first time), there are people who are flogging their gear permanently and not a dicky bird from you lot. I really don't agree with it unless the person has paid for their ad. Now if it was a regular member of MN, like me, then the for sale boards should be free, but how does one police them.

I think the cleverest business plan on MN is to start a thread where you spin such a fantastic story that when you move it to a blog, loads of avid MN readers follow it and click on the ads etc. Brilliant!

Heh heh

God I'm so naive - this sort of thing would never occur to me. Will watch out for it avidly from now on

First time I've used !!