Now that blogs are widely available, almost anyone who has something to say can find an audience ready to listen and interact with them. Blogging can be a lucrative hobby, too, or even a full-time profession; some bloggers make lots of money through donations or through selling ad space on their blogs. What bloggers may not realize is that you have to disclose the amount of money you make from your blog to your readers.
Paid Reviews
It’s especially important to disclose payments for reviews. For example, if a company pays you $100 to write a review of their product on your blog, you must share with readers that this is a paid review. The FTC ruled in 2009 that the standard rules about disclosing that an endorsement is paid pertain to bloggers, and if a blogger does not disclose that endorsement, he or she can be fined up to $11,000.
The reason for this rule is simple: paid reviews tend to be less objective than unpaid reviews, so consumers ought to be aware that a review may have been influenced by payment. That way they can determine whether they trust the review or want to read some more reviews before they purchase a product. If a blogger fails to disclose that he or she has been paid for a review, consumers may think the review is more objective than it is.
Conflicts of Interest
Bloggers must disclose any conflict of interest; paid reviews are a subset of that. If a blogger gets money from corporate sponsors or political campaigns, he or she must disclose that as well. These represent other conflicts of interest.
Basically, any time a blogger might be influenced by his or her connection to someone else, it results in a conflict of interest—the blogger might lose sponsorship if he or she gives a negative opinion of the sponsor. Readers need to know about conflicts of interest so that they can judge the accuracy of the information in the blog. That's why bloggers are required to disclose such conflicts.
How to Disclose
The best way to disclose conflicts of interest and payments for product reviews is to put a disclosure statement in a section marked "policy." The blog disclosure statement should be easy to find and access and readers should be encouraged to look at it. It's better to write the statement as part of your policy than to put an individual disclaimer on each blog. It's easy to forget to put a disclaimer on a particular post, and writing disclaimers each time can be time consuming or tedious.
Your blog disclosure statement should begin by stating who owns the blog and how that person can be contacted if a reader has any questions about the blog or its policies. The statement should then go on to explain whether the blog accepts any forms of compensation or not. It should then state what types of compensation the blog accepts and whether that compensation influences blog posts. It should also state whether there are any conflicts of interest, and if so, give names of people or corporations that may be involved in the conflict of interest.
By posting this statement, you inform your readers of any potential problems and meet the legal requirements for disclosure. Make sure your link to your disclosure statement is prominent—don't hide it at the bottom of your page or by using smaller type. Your disclosure statement will make you look more professional, as well as ensure that you are in compliance with the law.
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References
http://mashable.com/2009/10/05/ftc-blogger-endorsements/
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm
http://internet-law.lawyers.com/Truth-in-Blogging-New-FTC-Blog-Disclosure-Rules.html
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