PayPerPost Alleviates Some Controversy

I have talked about PayPerPost (and my love of it) quite a bit on my blog since I started writing paid posts for them in the middle of October. By now, you most likely know that PayPerPost facilitates blog advertising by bringing advertisers and bloggers together.

Most of the controversy surrounding this type of new business surrounds disclosure and whether or not bloggers are required to disclose that they are being paid to offer their opinions. Starting Monday, December 17th, any bloggers who work with PayPerPost will be required to disclose, at least somewhere on their blog, that they are getting paid to make posts. TechCrunch talks about it here.

I believe this is a good decision for PayPerPost on both moral and business grounds. It does seem to be primarily motivated by the recent FTC interest in Word of Mouth marketing and PayPerPost. PayPerPost has always had to strike a delicate balance between keeping their advertisers happy (some of whom do not like disclosure for various reasons) and making sure that their business is creating a positive influence on the blogosphere. PayPerPost began the road to disclosure by creating disclosurepolicy.org in October of 2006 as an easy way to encourage bloggers to disclose.

Although these moves may alienate some advertisers in the short term, it feels like the right thing both for the blogosphere and for me personally. Disclosure just feels better. Not disclosing feels somewhat manipulative, and that's not what I'm about. I was also slightly worried about the future of PayPerPost, but I believe this move will go a long way towards making that future a bright one.

BTW, this post is sponsored by PayPerPost.

~t