I don't really have much to offer here except that I am in agreement with Toby. Having the pre-checks below the submit button and/or below the fold is deceptive. The entire purpose of asterisks and fine print is for the purpose of deception, just like their placement on the page AND the fact that they are PRE-CHECKED in the first place. There's plenty of room for the true costs to be right there with the pre-checks and there's plenty of space for additional offers at the top of the form instead of below the submit button.
Professional marketers study advertising statistics. They know that HUGE amounts of surfers do not scroll below the fold for further information (only 10% did earlier in this decade) or read fine print. Sure, we webmasters realize how dangerous it is to place trust in sponsor programs, but a horny surfer doesn't know what we know, nor is he or she in their correct state of mind, at least not if we did our job correctly.
Is it the surfers fault for being lazy or ignorant? Perhaps, but that doesn't make it ethical for a program to take advantage of that ignorance.
Ok, I have to go to my telemarketing job now and see if I can sell some supplemental life insurance to senior citizens who aren't eligible for the benefits, but at least they can afford it.
