[ndriscoll]

Something like listing yourself in a business directory seems perfectly ethical. Something like yellow pages. Maybe where you are limited to a logo, 1-2 sentences, and a URL, with e.g. category or location metadata for the user to filter on. There could be a uniform nominal fee to pay for the service, or have it be a public service. Businesses could be presented in random order when browsing, or maybe in order of distance from a user-chosen location. Basically, a pull model for people to find businesses that provide products or services that they want. A similar model could be used for listing products, and then maybe the business directory could let you list retailers that carry a specific product or set of products.

Anything much above that starts to veer into the territory of paying to distort people's understanding of the market, or convince them they want things that they don't, etc.