As many mom bloggers do, I get A LOT of freebies offered and/or sent to OBE. I don’t go looking for them, phone people, send letters or ask for them. While there’s a huge business culture based on cashing in on these freebies, there’s one big reason we don’t take them (and it’s not because I don’t see the appeal, free can be very cool) – every time I take something from a marketer for myself, I feel like I steal a little bit of the power away from women’s voices around the world.

I come from the old skool - indoctrinated into the ethics of journalism and the “objectivity” mantra of the newspaper business at the tender age of 18. As the newsroom news desk clerk at my hometown daily newspaper, I saw everything. Professional sports tickets, free equipment, dinners on the house, comps at the symphony, product samples, clothes, airline tickets, jewelry, books to review – every kind of shwag imaginable – came across my desk.

It got opened, admired, and we all plotted ways to split it between everyone who knew it had come in and not tell anyone else about it. We’d smile and pretend to run off with it. My job was to promptly pack it back into a box with a sweetly declining “Thank You, but No Thank You” note on newsroom letterhead, and then send it in the direction of reviewers who would make return arrangements themselves, or give the tickets away to someone who had no potential to effect editorial decisions about that event, band or business.

I completely admit smug glee at getting a press release from a junior PR person, or some large marketing firm, who was doing an obvious wide-sweeping press release run and thinking, “Yeah, right, like I’m going to write a story about your stuff because you offered me free product or access to a big-star endorsement interview.”

I feel partial guilty for being a bit of an arrogant jerk about what I would or wouldn’t write about all those years ago. Especially since I wouldn’t have minded free tickets to a football or hockey game. And if there wasn’t a newspaper ethics code I may have become a very big fan of free dinners based on my meager salary and hefty student loans.

But, maybe that’s the point.

Keeping yourself on a course in life, and business, marked by integrity isn’t an easy one. It’s super simple to say “Well, they gave it to me” or “I deserve this.” It’s a pain in the ass to say “Yeah, that would make me a lot of money and I’d get lots of cool free stuff in the process, but that’s not what’s best for the whole.”

I am not claiming to be the queen of ethics. I’ve made calculated decisions about when and where I access this wide-open market. Sometimes I’ve screwed up. Sometimes I’ve been called on the carpet.

But, the one thing that I really feel strongly about is recognizing the consequences to entire segments of society when you choose to take a road that devalues a marketplace and robs a group of its ability to be empowered and/or respected.

Which leads us to one of the most controversial aspects of women in business today – the use of technology, its manipulation by the spin doctors and the women who use free as a business, devaluing the power of mothers as a collective force for change.

Over the last decade, women’s voices have become arguably the primary economic driver in terms of shopping. The convergence of that with social media has opened a massive window for marketers to buy off those voices under the guise of “Mom Approved.” The word of mouth power of a mom telling her friends something is great is being bought and paid for by free shoes and cases of cereal.

There are plenty of women who will be looking to take me out back for my perspective on this heated issue. In a world economy pummeled by job loss, failed markets and struggling political systems, the marketplace of “get it for free” is booming.

Marketers turned the freebie tap on a few years ago and it has flowed like a never-ending well of patio furniture and free vacuums. I’ve known mom bloggers who’ve had entire rooms of their home furnished for free by retailers hoping for a positive review on their website.

At first glance, that sounds like the perfect job – people send a mom blogger free stuff, she pimps it on her website, people get secret codes, sign up 12 ways to get the chance at a freebie and everyone wins. Right?

Wrong. And while I may be running my mouth, the reality is that I’m not the only one that thinks it’s wrong. Now, the law does too.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ruled that bloggers must now be completely transparent as it relates to advertisers. Bloggers can be fined as much as $11,000 per post for non-disclosure of material relationships between advertisers and editorial.

This has stirred the pot in freebie land – with mom bloggers facing off for what is sure to be a not-so-pretty debate.

We are a full disclosure website – always have been. You will never see a post that’s been paid for, a writer who has been paid to write about a business, event or product. We have a strict policy about never keeping freebies. We either send them back, pay for them or give them away.

There are business women arguing that paid posts and links, as well as taking freebies from marketers, are the main source for monetizing their blogs and that they should be able to get paid for their work in any way that works for them. But, I think the argument is less about freebies and more about the long-term effect that taking them has on the power of women’s voices as individuals and as a collective.

I used to be a regular reader of several high-profile Canadian mom blogs that I can no longer be a part of for one reason – the women behind them think it’s okay to take a free trip from a marketer and I’m just supposed to believe them when they tell me Disney Land rocks. It cheapens the message and makes me wonder if I can really trust that blogger to give it to me straight.

Before I get accused of pot calling the kettle black – yes, you’re right. I went to Toronto in May on a marketing firm’s dime for a blogger’s event on local food. We ate a lot, stayed at a great hotel and they paid for our plane tickets.

With that opportunity, I brought our 30-Day Local Food Challenge proposal to them – people I would never have had access to otherwise. They did not invite me to throw money at me. I pitched a project to Hellmann’s Canada Inc. and after much negotiation we were able to team up.  We negotiated a deal in which Hellmann’s paid to sponsor the event – no mayonnaise ads, no mayonnaise testimonials, no mayonnaise recipes, no mayonnaise anything.

That sponsorship enabled us to celebrate the people and places that make the Comox Valley an incredible place to eat local. We knew we would get some flack for it. But we were willing to do it for the sake of elevating the profile of all of the amazing food producers in the Comox Valley and on Vancouver Island.

It was a calculated risk. It opened the door for future opportunities to bring the Comox Valley onto the national stage – and bring the national stage to the Comox Valley.

It let the Comox Valley’s voice be heard from coast to coast and connected us with people like Nadia G and her crew at Bitchin’ Kitchen – whom we met in Toronto and have established a strong collaborative business relationship.

That’s the point in my own experience at which I can see marketing to women – and with women – and for women, working for the collective good.

The cough syrup I got in the mail a few weeks ago with a letter about how they would send me books and more bottles of cough syrup if I would review the product, not so much.

Sorting through that which is valuable to your business and what may appear to have value but, in the end, eats away at the strength of the whole, is something we may all spend a lifetime trying to figure out.

Integrity in business could simply come down to one reality – recognizing the holisitic nature of women and our power, understanding the effects of our daily choices on each other and – beyond disclosure and transparency – asking ourselves to not be sucked in by pretty things with no soul (to paraphrase the brilliant Helen Austin) to ensure that, when the time comes, the strength of our collective voice is limitless.