Selling a Site: Conflict of Interest?

[animalstyle]

Curious if anyone has ever ran into a situation like this before:

I am interested in selling an affiliate content site to a service provider in the same industry. Curious if a company providing a service or selling products in an industry can also own a content site in the same space?

Are there legal barriers that prevent it, or with proper disclaimers it is fine?

 

[Steve Brownlie]

There are no problems with this that are insurmountable - brands do it all the time, eg CheeseRank.com (now down would need to look on WayBack machine) was an information site made by Vayner Media to sell Ritz Crackers. Though even if there were it's their issue to deal with after they bought it (making sure they're set up to trade legally etc). I wouldn't spend much time worrying about what a future buyer of your site gets up to if they're offering you a nice wedge of cash.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'm pretty sure in the USA there's zero issues. As long as they disclose that they own their own products when they promote them, it's fine. Like when Casper strong armed Sleepopolis into selling their site to them through a financial war of attrition, they now have it on their Disclosures page that they own it. They have this on their review pages now at the top, in smaller print:

"We have an affiliate relationship with some companies where we get a percentage of sales if you click over from our site. Also, Casper provided financial support to allow JAKK Media (our company) to acquire Sleepopolis. See our full disclosures here."

You have some FTC rules to dance around but I don't think it's much more complex than the above.

 

[animalstyle]

Thank you for the responses @Ryuzaki and @Steve Brownlie Curious if you think this same disclosure approach would carry over into the medical, financial or legal or similar realms - for example a pharma company can't make specific health related claims on their properties, but could through a 3rd party website they owned.

Am I getting close to the "ask a lawyer" response? Feels like I might be...