Is it native or is a scam?

The new buzz in online marketing is native advertising.  This is a new word for what used to be called advertorial.  But by calling it something new some publishers think they can violate FTC rules on editorial content.  This has all still to be sorted out and of course who knows how Google will weigh in on it. 

But for us poor folk in the trenches trying to make sense of all the schemes going on on the Internet, this just adds one more layer of confusion.  So what is it?

The idea is for an advertiser to write an editorial piece and for the publisher to place it on their web site in a way that it looks like a normal editorial piece.  That is where the word "native" comes in.  BUT, the publisher clearly marks the piece as being promoted by the advertiser.

The advertiser loves getting their message out and supposedly the reader loves it for the great content.  Sound to me like the fox is in the hen house.  If the information were not self serving the advertiser wouldn't have wanted to publish it.  If disguising it as native was not a gimmick to get people to read it, the publisher wouldn't have stooped to such low methods.

This all reminds me of the prescription drug commercials.  The FTC says ok you can promote your drugs on tv to consumers as long as you tell everyone they will die if they take the drug.  The FTC figures nobody will want to do it.  The drug companies do it, tell you how great you will feel and then tell you some percentage of people will die.  Consumers figure that the death threats are overplayed and ignore them completely.

Same thing is being planned here.  Make the ad copy sound like and look like editorial.  Tell everyone it is biased sponsored copy and then watch while all the readers forget what was sponsored and what wasn't.