Kindly read carefully:
There are lots of fraud DM agencies and clients out there who just steal your free sample content in the disguise of interview tests. This is pure and clear criminal, since they are monetizing deliverables they did not pay for.
For this reason, I have adopted a method: I always publish whatever free sample they order as a part of the selection process so that they cannot just steal these content and use them on their sites.
This is 100% ethical, because before I have signed any contract with the company, any work I submit "intended for testing my skills only" is fully under my own copyright and I can legally and realistically do anything I wish with it. That includes publication rights.
Now, when Intlum contacted me after applying, their first ask was to submit an assignment and I agreed. The assignment arrived without any NDA or whatsoever (I have the evidence). It also looked suspiciously like a part of an ongoing project. So I intentionally posted the content on my blog after submitting it to Intlum, so that they do not use it for monetary gain.
After a week of silence (during which I have prodded them multiple times for any updates on my interview process), today they called me and said: "You have published our content on your website, this is illegal, this is unethical, it goes against our company policy, take down the content right now."
Me, always a gentleman, did not get into any argument with the hysterical person from Intlum, but didn't take down the content either. Here are my answers.
1. What company policy? You did not share any policies with me prior to this assignment, not even verbally. I didn't sign any NDA, compliance document, or anything.
2. If you do not intend to publish said free content, it's published or unpublished status has no effect whatsoever on your interview process. Not unless you intend to publish it yourself.
3. The implied ethics was that I was submitting a free sample of my work (that you did NOT pay for) for judging my skills only, not a free content for you to monetize.
4. As a copywriter with 11 years of experience, I fancy I know "a little" about copyright laws.
5. The fact that you actually called me up and said this indicates three things about you. A) you think I'm a complete cow, and B) you are definitely stealing content in the guise of interviews, and C) you're stupid enough to reveal that so blithely.