Since Google News, Yahoo News, and other online news aggregators sometimes have trouble distinguishing news journalism from news releases from corporations or their surrogate PR firms, then the ethical thing to do is to mark all company releases: "Not to be distributed by News Aggregators."

It is the ethical thing to do. Because some people might mistake company releases, especially if they are in social media release format, as real news stories written by independent unbiased parties. Especially if they see those press releases on sites such as Google News, where they are mixed with legitimate news stories written by journalists from around the world.

Also, the company news release should clearly state at the top:"This content was prepared to promote the products or services of the following company or companies: [put company names here] and was created by: [PR firm or individual]."

Does anyone have any problems with that? It upholds transparency and it directly identifies the source of the content. It allows people to make their own judgement on the quality of the content.

Who'll be the first to send me a press release with those marks?

Or do you tell your clients how they can get their press release wide distribution through Google and Yahoo news? And charge them for it?

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Please see: Why Social Media Releases are Moving in a Bad Direction - Questionable Ethics in Masquerading as "News"