For a couple of days, I actually believed the information coming out of the Arbonne camp surrounding the ethics of asking an Arbonne consultant the following question:

"Are you keeping your options open outside of Arbonne right now?"

Arbonne VP’s and Kay Napier would have you believe that question is a violation of Direct Selling Code Of Ethics (although Kay is smart enough not to mention the DSA in her letter).  But the truth is, there is no violation of the code in that question whatsoever. 

There is an additional "guideline" in a letter from the DSA President that states the following:

Occasionally, direct sellers in the field will be approached by other companies or their sales leaders with solicitations to join those companies. Sometimes, these solicitors present misinformation and denigrate the company you are with. Those solicitations can be inappropriate, unethical, misrepresentative, or even illegal and may be at odds with the Proselyting Guidelines of the Direct Selling Association (DSA). Under those guidelines, it is considered unethical behavior throughout the industry for one company to target the salesforce of another company in an attempt to lure salespeople into their own organization and stop selling for their original company.

Note that the basics of this guideline (not part of the actual code) surround the concept of "misinformation".  In other words, when someone is lying to you in order to recruit you to another business. It has nothing to do with the ethics of simply contacting someone involved in Arbonne.

A friend of mine asked a very interesting question.  Let us know what you think.

"Would it be ethical for the captain and crew of a ship that is going down to hide the lifeboats from the passengers?"