Good thing I somehow stayed mostly healthy. But it still made getting work done rather more challenging than I had planned.

For now I’m keeping it simple. I fully expect things to get clearer as time goes on. For now I have it as:

If you purchase anything reviewed or recommended on this site, I probably earn a commission. Not always, but often enough you may as well assume I do.

When looking at home business opportunities, keep in mind that most businesses fail. That’s as true online as it is anywhere else. But if you don’t try you won’t succeed.

I have no idea if that’s enough. But it’s a start and true enough. No matter how well some people do with any one business model, your average person won’t. Matter of fact, even if you buy the ebook that tells exactly how someone made a ton of money you can’t say you’ll do the same. You can’t even say for sure that you’ll ever get around to reading it. An awful lot of people don’t even take that much action even when they say they want to earn money from home.

And of course I always want to earn a commission if I can on a product. I’d be crazy not to. The money’s right there. Or is it over there? Either way, it’s a bit of compensation for the work I do here. But when the product is good enough and relevant enough, money is not the sole consideration. Quality can overrule $$$, even when we’re talking about money in my pocket.

There are of course tons of blog posts out there you can read up on this for your own needs. New FTC Guidelines over at Matt’s Marketing Blog is a fair read. My understanding is that there will be warnings and a chance to make it right before there are any fines levied, but it’s always better to avoid the hassle in the first place.

The basic thing you need to remember is to keep it honest. You may or may not get caught, but with new rules in place you might just be hurting yourself if you ignore them.

Related posts:

1. Why Are Mom Blogs Getting So Much Attention from the FTC?
2. FTC Says Bloggers Must Disclose Payments
3. Clickbank Has Added FTC Rules

Amy Bellgardt of Mom Spark pointed this one out, and from what I’ve seen it certainly appears to be true. She was interviewed for an article that was supposed to be about the backlash on Twitter over an event at Nestle. That’s not how the article turned out, though. It focused far more on the swag, hotel rooms and meals the moms got at the event.

That seems to be pretty routine for traditional treatment of moms who blog. We’re the focus when they talk about the new FTC rules about disclosure. Never mind that when it comes down to it all blogs will have to consider the FTC rules when accepting any form of compensation for posting.

Apparently mom blogs are an easy target.

It’s hard to know just why this is. I think there’s an image of the bored stay at home mom posting excessively personal stuff about her family and selling out for whatever stuff comes their way. It’s not a particularly accurate image in my experience, but the image sticks.

Blogging is easy to start, it’s true, but success takes rather more. Selling out and being dishonest doesn’t get you all that far. That a successful business can be built from home so easily (relative to a brick and mortar business) should be a source of inspiration.

Related posts:

1. The New York Times vs. Mom Bloggers
2. FTC Says Bloggers Must Disclose Payments
3. Finding Guest Bloggers or Guest Blogging Opportunities

But now it’s official. The FTC expects bloggers to disclose payments and freebies given in exchange for product reviews.

Reading through things, I would expect that it could be applied to affiliates as well. After all, that’s one of the major sources of false reviews.

What I think they will need to make more clear is how disclosure is done. I have a standard disclosure on this site that I may accept payment of various sorts. Is that enough or do I need to specify exactly when a particular product review is paid?

Of course, what it basically comes down to is be honest in your reviews.

But this also means that if you are selling products you need to be aware of the rules. If you pay for a review or have affiliates, you could be held responsible for false statements made about your products. That’s not an easy thing to control, but still something you’ll have to watch out for.

No doubt there’s going to be a lot of talk about this over the next few days.

Related posts:

1. Why Are Mom Blogs Getting So Much Attention from the FTC?
2. Clickbank Has Added FTC Rules
3. Deciding What to Say For FTC Disclosures

This drives me nuts. Mom bloggers are far from the only ones getting merchandise to try in order to review it. That’s something that has been going on for a long time in many other areas, as commenter Crunchy Carpets pointed out, and as I’ve been wondering as well. I’ll quote her, as she has it right:

What I am curious about is why the ‘mom’ bloggers seem to be getting more heat about reviews than other areas on the blogosphere. Are the male tech writers getting scrutinized by mainstream media and the FTC? They all get sent free stuff. Are the video game or movie sites getting grilled for their ‘promotional’ efforts. They all get sent free stuff.
Movie sites get sent to sets and on press junkets and given all sorts of freebies in return for ‘good reviews. Their morals have been argued about for years. It is all nothing new.

All this doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with appropriate disclosure. It just means that I don’t see why it’s suddenly a big deal when mom bloggers get the things other sites have long been getting.

It strikes me as sexist too.

Momblebee makes similar points, as do some of the other commenters.

Free samples have been given in exchange for review for a long time, longer than blogging has been around. It’s nothing new. Perhaps the only new thing about it is that just about anyone can start a blog, and not have the costs associated with starting a print magazine or newspaper. It’s very open.

Yes, that means some people will lie about the products because they think only a good review should be posted. Yes, some people will be fooled into buying things they wouldn’t have if an honest review had been posted. Goodness knows that dishonest reviews are common enough in the work at home arena!

But does that mean we need special disclosure rules?

I tend to think not. I would expect the standard rules on making false advertising claims should be sufficient. Best aimed at the blogger, and at the advertiser more if there seems to be a pattern of encouraging false claims. It’s awfully hard for advertisers to control what bloggers say, after all, and still keep things honest in both positive and negative comments about the product.

There’s no doubt that the internet is very much a wild frontier in many ways as of yet. It’s much harder to control what goes on when it’s so easy for content to be created. That’s not a call for speedy, harsh regulation. There’s an advantage to the wild growth and free flow of information that the internet provides.

Should buyers beware when they read online reviews? Absolutely.

Should reviewers disclose if they got products free or have a relationship with the business whose product they are reviewing? Of course.

But no matter how the disclosure is done, it comes down to a matter of trust. A good source will be trusted with or without the disclosure.

A bad one may be trusted once or twice, but if they share false information people will learn. Certainly not as quickly as the FTC would like, but that’s going to happen even with regulation, as new sites and blogs will pop up faster than they can be reviewed… not to mention everything that is based from outside the United States.

Much as one might like all reviews to be honest, it’s not going to happen.

As a blogger or business owner, all you can do is keep yourself honest. Being transparent about when you get something for free is a generally good idea. If nothing else, it will help you if the FTC does keep getting serious about this. It also makes it clearer why you’re talking about a product that maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise. Say what you really feel, even when it’s not 100% positive.

Of course, the focus on mom bloggers may in large part be simply due to the media. And if you think the disclosure issues are going to be a problem, you’ll also want to pay attention to the part about “atypical results”. Lynn Terry has a really good post on this issue. The FTC doesn’t even want atypical results to be used, even if they’re your own experience. They only want typical results, which strikes me as beyond problematic. How can you discuss your own experience then? How do you know what’s typical?

If you review products, whether you’re paid to do so or just receive them free, or even if you’re hoping to get an affiliate commission for sales through your links, it’s really going to pay to think about what you’re saying. Have a disclosure policy and stick strictly to it.

And, of course, keep paying attention to the story as it develops. It doesn’t matter what kind of blog or site you have, if you’re talking about products you need to know what’s might impact your business.

Related posts:

1. FTC Says Bloggers Must Disclose Payments
2. Deciding What to Say For FTC Disclosures
3. How Do You Find Blogs to Comment On?

If you do any paid blogging or affiliate marketing on your site, a disclosure policy is a generally good idea anyhow. I got one when the whole Pay Per Post storm hit and they realized it made sense.

The most basic thing you need to think about this is that you shouldn’t be making claims you can’t prove. You also need to be upfront about if a particular experience is not the usual. That’s just good marketing even if there aren’t legal consequences to consider.

The big areas of concern are probably areas such as make money online and diet claims, as those are quite prone to exaggerated claims or excessive focus on atypical results. But don’t start exaggerating results in other areas. You could get in trouble anywhere.

Some good reading:
FTC To Clamp Down On Social Media Marketing
FTC and Viral Marketers May Square Off

Related posts:

1. Is Clickbank Finally Cleaning Up the Rules for Products Sold There?
2. Why Are Mom Blogs Getting So Much Attention from the FTC?
3. FTC Says Bloggers Must Disclose Payments