Ethics: Having students use my referral link for a product used in the classroom? I was using a Web service I particularly like the other day, and noticed that they have a referral program.  (More specifically, UsabilityHub, but the details of the service itself aren't important.)  So then this hypothetical scenario came to mind.

Suppose I'm slated to teach a class, and decide that said Web service would be valuable in my teaching.  Let's say that:


It's genuinely useful in my pedagogy and/or for helping students produce quality work.
It's a commercial service and has no student discount, but the most relevant parts are free.
I don't require use of this Web service, but I encourage it (though not through any formal means, i.e. no extra credit for using this service).
I happen to use this service for both personal/hobby projects and for professional work, all under one account.


Now suppose that this Web service provides a referral program, i.e. if anyone signs up with my referral link, both I and the new user get benefits of some kind.  However, these benefits are not monetary in nature--they're a form of credit for the service, and cannot be redeemed for cash.

Is it ethical to ask my students to sign up to this Web service through my referral link, given that I use this Web service in both a personal and professional capacity under the same account?  Let's say that I tell them everything that I mention in this post, too (including my usage of the service).

Oh, and I should clarify that this is entirely a hypothetical scenario.  I'm not even in a position where this is actually an issue for me.
There is a saying, "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion," which I believe applies well to an ethical dilemma of this sort.  Despite the somewhat nasty origins of the quote, what it has come to mean is that in some circumstances one must not only act ethically but also act to ensure a very clear appearance of ethical behavior.

In this case, the question is this: could a reasonable person question whether you might have chosen to recommend this service in part because of the benefits that redound to you yourself?

In this case, since there are a number of other ways that you might have gone about obtaining similar capabilities for the class, it would be reasonable for a student or other person to wonder if you were influenced to recommend that particular site due to the benefits that you would obtain through the referrals.  Given your position of authority, then, I believe that does create a genuine ethical concern regarding the referral program.

I see two basic approaches to resolving this:


Recommend the service, but do not make use of the referral program.
Recommend both this service and several of the other competing services.  Note that this is the one that you personally use, and for this service provide both a non-referral and referral link (being transparent about the benefit to you).


Personally, I would prefer the first option, since it's completely unambiguous, but would not find the second particularly problematic.