Tsar by Pavel Lungin and Ethics in Affiliate Marketing

A few days ago Russia celebrated Christmas, and while choosing a movie to watch yesterday night my attention was naturally drawn to a new film by Pavel Lungin — “Tsar” [more here and here | it’s also available in the U.S. with English subtitles]. It is not an easy movie to watch. Much of it depicts the terror and chaos that the 16th-century Russia lived in; and many of the happenings reflected in it reminded me of the topic of my Cambridge dissertation – Stalin, people’s attitude towards him, his terror, etc. The two main characters in the “Tsar” movie were Tsar Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitanate Philipp (tsar’s childhood friend). Ivan invited Philipp to serve as the metropolitan/chief bishop over all Russia during a very uneasy time in the history of the country. Philipp agreed, and dived right into the terribly reality of oprichnina, and the omnipresent fear and terror. Without a shadow of a doubt he stood against the sin, and refused to bless anything connected with it. Such a decision ended up costing him his life…

We live in a world of very different realities. However, the questions of ethics, and adherence to moral norms constantly come up — especially in the industry of affiliate marketing. Many are going with the flow — the big-cash-in-short-time flow; but there are people (OPMs, affiliate program managers, industry’s advocates like Kelly Stevens and Melanie Seery, networks like buy.at, ShareASale and AvantLink) that take a stand against unethical affiliate marketing regardless of what it costs them. Of course, these days the costs are not as dramatic as one’s life, but still…

I’d love to see more of Metropolitanate Philipp kind of people around me, and I will keep on doing everything that I can to keep exposing the “black hat” players in the industry — to make things more transparent and obvious for everyone. The choice will always remain open to you, my readers. I hope you’ll take a clear stand too. It’ll only help your business.