The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is bringing in new rules that will have a drastic effect on Internet marketers and bloggers. According to the new rules, if you blog for money or received any free stuff that is associated with a blog post, you have to disclosed it. Failure to do so could mean fines of up to $11,000 per violation.
The easiest way to comply with the new FTC rules is to have a disclosure policy page that clearly outlines your relationship with readers and advertisers. The FTP only has power in the US. However, I have a feeling that these rules will eventually spread to the Canadian version of the FTC (whatever that is). To prepare myself, I’ve created the following disclosure policy and added it under my About page. If you’re reading my blog, you should assume the following:
- I make money from every post I put on this blog. If I’m not making money from every blog post, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
- Every link on this blog is a paid link. If it is not a paid link, then it was an oversight on my part and it will become a paid link soon.
- Every product I write about on this blog, I get for free. If I didn’t get it for free, then there was a miss-communication with the company that sent it and I will be billing them for the cost so the product becomes free.
- I make money from every tweet I send out on Twitter. If I didn’t make money on the tweet, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
- If you email me, all of the information in your email is mine to do with as I please, such as exploit for financial profit, use as blackmail, or quote on my blog.
- The T-shirts you see me wear at trade shows. I get paid to wear them. If I didn’t get paid to wear them, then it means I ran out of paid shirts and had to wear a free one. In which case, I will go to the company that gave me the free shirt and ask them to sponsor it.
- If something on the Net is making a lot of money, you can bet I will be in on it. If I’m not in on it, then it was an oversight on my part and it will be corrected soon.
- Just because I get paid to blog, tweet, wear T-shirts, etc. does NOT mean I will give you or your company a positive review, blog post or endorsement. As a matter of fact, chances are pretty high that I might slam you.
Hopefully, the above statement clears up any misunderstanding you may have about my blog posts or Twitter tweets. If you have any questions, you can contact me at my contact page. Just remember what I said about emails.
This disclosure policy was sponsored by Market Leverage and Clickbooth. Yes, I make money on my disclosure statement as well!
Feel free to use this as a template for creating your own disclosure policy. 🙂