Diary of a Mad Editor

Dear Mad Editor,

Since 2006, I have been a pay-per-poster, accepting money and free samples for writing about companies that buy reviews on my blog. I was dismayed to learn that the Federal Trade Commission will be going after bloggers who do this. What should I do? Should I quit doing this on my blog?

— Worried Blogger

Dear Worried Blogger:

The Federal Trade Commission did recently rule that some bloggers who accept payolla for promoting products and services without full disclosure could face fines of up to $11000.

The first thing I’d tell you is, don’t worry. The FTC has a severe backlog of complaints to sort through and very limited resources. Given the number of bloggers out there — many of whom accept some form of compensation for ads and paid inserts, it’s highly unlikely that the FTC will be able to enforce it’s recent ruling. Besides, they are clearly more interested in going after the advertisers themselves and the big-time professional bloggers who generate significant income and have a wider reach than most bloggers.

That being said, it’s probably not a good idea to use your blog primarily for hawking products like you’re some casino chippie offering las vegas hotel specials, if you catch my drift.

I’ll use myself as an example. I, too, sometimes accept money in exchange for paid posting (although most of the advertising I do on this blog is in the form of contextual links rather than paid posting, which isn’t covered by the FTC ruling). I do a pretty good job of policing myself and am not currently in violation of the FTC’s new guidelines.

1). I have my own disclosure policy posted on this blog. Also, paid posts are filed in a “sponsored” category. More blatant posts usually have an additional disclaimer.

2.) Despite the fact that many of the companies that hire bloggers to do paid posting do not like you to back-date post, I do it whenever I can get away with it. This effectively buries the posts among many more legitimate posts so the paid ones are not front and center, but the advertiser still gets the backlink from the posting. That way both parties get something out of the deal, but my readers (and my page rank) don’t have to suffer.

3.) Most of the paid posts I do are unrelated to the topics covered on this blog so there is no clear conflict of interest to my way of thinking. I only consider it a conflict if I’m actively promoting a product or service my readers would have use for. Say, I wrote about some software like First Draft or the like and said, “Hey writers, this is the best program, etc.” That would be a clear eithical violation if I was being paid to say that and didn’t actually use the product and wasn’t upfront about it.

4.) If you’re going to write a product review or talk about a website, write a real review. Don’t just say how much you like X — analyze X. Critique X. Compare and contrast X to another X. I’ve actually lost money by doing this as a number of my own paid posts have been rejected because I wrote something negative or wasn’t entirely glowing. Probably the best thing about this ruling is that both the advertisers and the companies who facilitate these postings won’t have as much power to reject posts on that basis for fear of prosecution.

5.) Allow me to reiterate that this FTC ruling doesn’t cover all forms of advertising. Banner ads, most contextual advertising are not covered. Realize further, that unless there is a clear pattern of abuse on your website AND there have been complaints (a lot of complaints — enough to make the FTC notice), you’re not likely to have to deal with fines and lawsuits. And even then . . . . And if you’ve read the ruling, you must be aware how ill-defined the guidelines are. For my part, I’m not sweating these changes and, like I said, you shouldn’t either.