I am writing to ask in general if you are aware of any other dubious ethical practices used by this publisher, and in particular if anyone else has seen examples of comment spam from them?
For the record if the person who wrote the comment, even had they chosen to hide behind anonymity, had interacted with my material or other comments in some way I would NOT have deleted the comment. As it is I intend to cease recommending any works audio or print published by Nelson to students and churches if a viable alternative exists from a more ethical publisher.
Addendum: [in case you do not rerad the comments] this comment is posted below, in fairness to Thomas Nelson I am copying it here so that you can read it with my post:Michael Hyatt left a comment:Blogger, unlike WordPress :( does not seem to collect (or at least does not offer bloggers a chance to see) the IP addresses of commenters, and this one was "Annonymous" but I am glad to hear that such behaviour is not approved, though puzzled since another biblical studies blogger has had similar experiences advertising your company's products. I do NOT object to anyone linking to your product pages, IF they are relevant and add something to the discussion.
I am the CEO of Thomas Nelson. We do not encourage or promote comment spam. Like you, I hate it. I spend more time than I would like deleting it from my own blog.
If you have an IP address or other information from the person who commented, I will be happy to take the appropriate action.
Labels: audio.bible, podcast, publication, publish
¶ 9:07 AM
[to Del.icio.us]
I am the CEO of Thomas Nelson. We do not encourage or promote comment spam. Like you, I hate it. I spend more time than I would like deleting it from my own blog.
If you have an IP address or other information from the person who commented, I will be happy to take the appropriate action.
Thanks.
By 
Michael Hyatt, at
October 22, 2009 1:05 PM
Tim,
It is quite possible that someone in the marketing arm of Nelson thought this would be a good idea and either didn't clear it with their boss or the boss didn't think to mention it to the CEO. I know that our marketing people had some problems with a young and enthusiastic staff member making inappropriate use of one of the social networking sites. It was very rapidly stopped when the person's manager found out and it was made clear to all staff that it wasn't an appropriate use of the medium. It just hadn't occurred to the manager that anyone would think to do it in the first place. It sounds as though this is a similar incident.
By Judy Redman, at
October 22, 2009 6:34 PM
With some 500 employees, we may have a rogue marketing associate doing this; I don't know. Regardless, I have sent an email to our Bible marketing people, letting them know that this is inappropriate behavior.
Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
