I have an ethics question....

[Fast Eddy]

Please don't bring ethics into poker. People confuse ethics and poker and ethics and all sorts of other things. In a purely ethical context, deception is usually considered unethical. At the same time, an ethicist would not insist that deception is unethical at the poker table because deception is acceptable according to the rules of the game.

I believe what you're talking about is pretty clearly a form a of collusion and is against the stated rules.