After studying the designs of corporate websites, Penn State University professor S. Shyam Sundar discovered quite an interesting phenomenon: The more interactive and engaging a website is, the more likely visitors are to “buy into whatever is being advocated” on the site. In other words, if two websites have identical content, the site with greater interactivity and more

“bells and whistles” would be more persuasive.33 Is it ethical to increase the persuasive power of a website simply by making it more interactive? Why or why not? [LO-1]