Following on from Tom Coates' unpleasant experience with a fictional character posting comments to promote Cillit Bang... Katherine Stone finds a company using her blog on post partum depression to pitch its story, clumsily.

When I read the comments, they turned out to be written by someone promoting a screening service to help busy doctors identify patients with PPD.  The person essentially wrote the same sales pitch for the three different posts and included a link to his business.  That is indecent marketing as far as I'm concerned. 

Where do people get the idea that there are no rules of etiquette when it comes to marketing?  My blog exists to support women with PPD, and is NOT a free advertising service for all comers.

Clearly, some marketing folks are on a learning curve when it comes to blogs. It's worth remembering that blogs are very personal spaces and clumsy sales pitches masquerading (at best) as conversation are going to backfire.