Why Disclosure is in Your Future

According to Wikipedia, disclosure means:

“The giving out of information, either voluntarily or to be in compliance with legal regulations or workplace rules.”

You are probably asking, “What the heck does that have to do with me?”

Well, my friend, the government just decided to put their hands into the Internet.  The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a ruling about disclosure online. Here is the basic premise behind it – If you write about something and want people to buy it, you have to tell them you are getting paid to write about it.

If you interested in reading the entire long and boring report, you can find it here.

Are You Doing Something You Shouldn’t Be?

What’s that?

You have to change the way you write or promote products because of this?

If that’s what you have to do, then do it. I do have to point something out though; you should already have disclaimers when you promote something. Whether it is writing, audio, video or whatever, you should not have to change anything. To me, if you are not disclosing that you get a kickback from your review, I might think you are trying to scam me.

For me, I can tell you that those ads on my sidebar, those are affiliate links. When I write a review I get paid for, I will tell you so. Now, not everything I recommend pays me; I do like to spread the love and recommend good things when I see them.

For those not doing it, now is the time to start breaking out the disclaimers; you will be sorry if you don’t.

What I Don’t Like

There is one thing that bugs me about this whole “disclosure” thing. It could be me or did the Internet just get another footprint put on it?

To me, it seems like this could lead to future “happenings”. I am no conspiracy theorist but just add that to your list of thoughts for the future.

What are your thoughts?