DP: To be fair, mark each post which is paid (“sponsored”), is not a complicated proposition. I just don’t go into high dudgeon that some small-fry cut corners on it (it doesn’t matter much anyway in practice, since the post is for the search engine linkage, not the human readers). Some A-listers do have general disclosure page, but the problem is that it’s hard to get context from that.

DP Dan: So you won’t have a disclosure policy that means anything until everyone else does? Nice dodge of the question.

Even though PPP isn’t the blogger or the sponsor, it never hurts to encourage best practices. I thought you’d enjoy the CEO’s latest/timely post:
http://blog.payperpost.com/2007/03/disclose-disclose-disclose.html . This is a message I don’t hear from the multi-billion dollar affiliate industry (Amazon, Google, others) and I even see elites such as Calacanis trying to deny their conflicts. Help make Disclosure Policies an audience expectation and we have a shot at everyone playing by the same rules — assuming you want that

There’s a different issue about understanding what PayPerPost actually does – read my column! This is about search engines, which *don’t* *care* about either BigHead fulminations, or mass support. Also see my blog post:

PageRank/Link-Buying Doesn’t Care About Blogger Ethics.
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001087.html

Don’t think I like these people. I looked at some “Posties”, and thought “human splog” (spam blog). But it’s “markets are conversations” with a *vengeance*. It’s exactly the sort of attention-selling commercialized by A-listers, except PPP is the intermediary, not cartel members.

Pushing for genuine disclosure? HA HA HA! There’s so many things I’d like to know about the A-list deals, that it’s downright absurd to be waving that as an ethical banner. “Disclosure” is what the A-lister says it is, obfuscation is what the A-lister says it is. And I can’t put details here (I sent them to you) because personal attack is what the A-lister says it is too .

Related quote (sorry, can’t link, the spam-filter ate an early attempt, it’s from Valleywag):
“Unfortunately, despite blog-media’s near-sexual fixation on transparency, disclosure is not a means toward absolution for ridiculous acts. Disclosure is actually a test of your audience’s tolerance for chicanery. Most embarrassing is the naive assumption that simply disclosing the payoff somehow made it kosher”

Where is the evidence that the masses support quasi-disclosed pay-for-play? Or are you talking about the bloggers who’ve signed up? Hardly a mass phenomenon.

The “elites” you disdain don’t fear your model from any competitive point of view (or if they do they’re idiots). If you’re including me in your elites category, which is absurd at this point, I’ll tell you what I fear: that even more people will get the idea that ethically challenged behavior is appropriate, that making trust even murkier is good for us. It’s not.

A sitewide disclosure policy as vague as the one you let your bloggers use is a tiny bit better than no disclosure at all, but no more than that. It says, basically, “Much of what you read here is written for pay, directly or indirectly from companies I’m talking about, but I’m not going to say which ones.” Transparency? No, more like obfuscation that invites the reader (assuming the reader spots the disclosure statement, which is not a given) to disbelieve everything. How that will help your bloggers get more traffic is a mystery.

I and may others have called for greater transparency in all kinds of media, traditional and new. I’d love to see higher standards prevail, and would be happy to see lots of ways for audiences to understand the conflicts where they exist. When PPP starts requiring a disclosure policy that has actual teeth, I’ll gladly work with you. Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath in anticipation.

I invested in PPP largely on the disintermediation opportunity and the team’s commitment to helping the masses access what the elites have gotten via passes, product, cash, meals, travel and exclusives for some time — compensation for their efforts/influence. When such a direct business model exists it brings more diverse people/perspectives into the blogosphere conversation and encourages discipline/frequency that may have been absent as a hobby — with world-changing potential. The response from the masses (support) and the elites (fear) is about what I expected.

It has surprised me a bit that the elites trash positive innovations such as prominent, sitewide Disclosure Policies — a framework that drives transparency beyond any other medium and has the flexibility to handle various/future scenarios (e.g. conference speakers who get selected/comped largely on the expectation of some blog coverage/influence peddling, online indie filmmakers who fund their movies via product placements). Given that a robust Disclosure Policy framework requires elites to disclose all of their direct and indirect conflicts, I probably shouldn’t be surprised.

If groups like Citizen Media want to help drive transparency going forward, let’s pull together to improve and expand Disclosure Policies for all conflicts. Some folks are already creating DP plug-ins. Wouldn’t it be terrific if every TV station, newspaper and radio station had a standard button audiences could push on-the-fly to understand conflicts, biases and practices? They can’t, but we can do that here — if transparency is really the goal and not just protecting cartels…

[spam-note: Second post, without URL, since the spam-filter seemed to have eaten the first]