What the ads fail to disclose is the fact that consumers who respond to the ad and sign up for the supposedly free service from FreeScore actually are signing up for a costly credit-monitoring service for a whopping $29.95 per month! Yes, that's per month, which works out to more than $350 per year!

Now, the Times didn't fire Stein because of FreeScore's overpriced and unnecessary service. (I've explained how folks can get a completely free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus). The Times fired Stein because he violated the paper's conflict-of-interest policy. In explaining the firing, a Times' representative said:

"Ben Stein's fine work for us as a columnist for Sunday Business had to end, we told him, after we learned that he had become a commercial spokesman for FreeScore, a financial-services company. Ben didn't understand when he signed on with FreeScore that this might pose a potential conflict for him as a contributing columnist for the Times, because he hadn't written about credit scores or this company. But, we decided that being a commercial spokesman for FreeScore while writing his column wouldn't be appropriate."

Many people I speak and interact with are surprised to learn how lax many publications' and media outlets' conflicts-of-interest policies are. The vast majority of Web-based publishing outlets have no such policies. (Disclosure: I have never accepted speaking fees, endorsement deals or fees of any type from companies in the financial-services industry or product or service providers recommended in my articles, books and publications.)

I say, good for The New York Times to have such a conflict-of-interest policy and good for them to actually enforce their policy.

By contrast, for many years, Suze Orman has been paid for numerous financial-service company ad campaigns. She hasn't been fired from CNBC and the other venues she works for because they look the other way and lack appropriate conflict-of-interest policies.