I have covered disclosure in blog posts extensively but fake testimonials just irks me.

There is a story in the New York Times over a settlement just reached for some fake testimonials on iTunes (via Techmeme)

The story reminded me of something I saw earlier on one of the new “job” sites, Fiverr earlier in the day. Some of the stuff posted there is quite legitimate, but all these offers for testimonials for whatever you want are just wrong.

Now I have been a supporter of paid reviews in the past

For me they are legit when as an author you get to review something, even if just the website and if you offer some kind of opinion, then it has to be your honest opinion without any restrictions, and preferably without any oversight – free to publish honst criticism if justified. I have also supported clear disclosure.
You could also have advertorials written by a 3rd party as long as they are clearly marked.
You would also be wise to nofollow or otherwise block search engines from counting the links or they might get upset.

I can see video reviews being totally legitimate if they use the same criteria though how you tell Google that a video is a paid review I have no idea, especially if it is posted to Youtube.

What I can’t sanction, and to be honest it makes me feel all creepy and dirty is flat out paying for a positive video testimonial.

This is high risk not only for the person doing the review, but also for any business owner using the testimonial. I have no idea how this would also affect Fiverr who probably profit from any transaction.

The reasons why I am mentioning this?

I think Erik represents the “good” human side of affiliate marketing and is learning his lessons well, and working hard. His affiliate blog is obviously wrtten by a person, not “admin”, has a privacy statement, and real about page which discusses why he is promoting the product as an affiliate, and lots of content.

But this also gives me the opportunity to offer a few tips.

It would be fairly easy to add some kind of disclosure statement in the sidebar about affiliate status, and depending on geographical location there might be a need for more contact details such as a P.O. box.

First link priority – Erik didn’t abuse my comment policy, but his second link with anchor text wouldn’t have counted, even if he had enough comments on my blog to get followed links, because there was already a link to the resource in his name field (where he used his name)

Email address – The email address used was for the new website – that might close some doors for spying out some of his other properties, but there are other ways to do that anyway, as I am sure he has multiple sites on the same domain, maybe common use of adsense etc.
However by not using a consistant email address over time, it is hard to build up a reputation on blogs like mine which enable dofollow links after a period of time, or after a certain number of comments.

The best practice, to be 100% above board?

• Always use a consistant email address
• Establish a real identity – gravatar etc
• Always use your name in the name field
• If your comment is just in response to a post, and won’t include a link to a resource, then you can justifiably link to your favorite money site (or maybe a pumper) as long as it is high quality and obviously yours (like Erik’s is)
• If you are going to include a resource, then for the name field link it is best to use a totally different domain, or at least link to the root domain there and use a deep link to real solid relevant content within the comment body

Including a link in the content you really need to be on target with a resource that is without doubt relevant to the conversation, something that if not mentioned would reduce the value of the discussion.

Quite often any link drop within the content will be held for moderation even on blogs where you have an existing high quality profile and reputation, so it must be up to human scrutiny.

But this annoyed me yesterday

Clickbank has required for some time (at least 2 years) that affiliates comply with FTC recommendations for WOMM. That could just be looked at as a legal “out” but it is there in writing.

There is lots of noise (and some signal) over the last couple of days about the FTC, so affiliates are using it in headlines for email promotions. I opened one and the link was a Clickbank promotion, I opened a second, and it was to a genuine blog post.

Here is what the person promoting an affiliate product sent

BREAKING NEWS: Making Money Online Illegal??

Hi,

It no longer matters if you are struggling to make your first
buck or if you are already killing it on the internet…

EVERYBODY is going to be effected by this…

This blog just broke the story and it is THE most important
information you will ever read this year…

[Go here now] and see for yourself:

No optin needed. This is a shocking blog video news post that
was just published a few moments ago.

It will change the way you look at your ability to make
money online…

[Find out here now]. Fast.

This is the scoop: There have been A LOT of changes
online recently and now the big question is “Has making
Money Online Become Illegal?”

The answer might shock you…

This WILL change everything. [Get the full story here:]

To your success,

• This was pre-written email copy supplied to JV partners as I have seen this email sent by 2 different unrelated email lists.
• The links in the email I added square brackets and are in bold like [this is a link]
• The deceptive headline did get me to open it, but a smart copywriter would have added some truth to the content
• The links proclaim a blog post
• You click the links and end up on a sales page
• The sales page itself is full of elements that are probably extremely dodgy now, and the biggest insult is probably the fake “trust marks”.

Fake Trust Marks

If someone is using fake trust marks, would you:-

• Believe their income claims?
• Actually trust them in any way?

Notice any similarities between legitimate trust marks provided by Trust Guard, and the fake ones?

That is an affiliate banner, and I have chatted with Garrett the affiliate manager in the past regarding my larger project. Trust Guard is one of the most affordable legitimate trust mark providers, and possibly the cheapest for things like PCI compliance though it has been a while since I did my research.
If you like what they offer, do your own due diligence and end up becoming their customer, there is a small chance if you haven’t cleared your cookies and the tracking works and countless other potential problems, that I might earn an affiliate commission.

Oh, and I have just lost trust in the people who sent me the email, and the chances of me promoting one of their products in the future, or even remaining on their email list are remote.

I wouldn’t want my readers to be sent dishonest emails if I referred them and they ended up on their list.

Real FTC Commentary From Marketers

There has been lots of coverage on technology blogs and “social media maven” blogs but I just want to highlight a few I have read you might have missed.

Michel Fortin has some great commentary about testimonials and vendor liability for the actions of affiliates.

The FTC’s Feebie Rule on Fashionista – included because sometimes I get free samples to review, and free samples I don’t end up having time to even look at, or find unsuitable. I also sometimes get free access to things based upon previous affiliate performance. I used to work in the games industry – do you think logos of hardware manufacturers end up on product boxes without some quid pro quo?

How much are PC adverts subsidized if they include Intel and Microsoft logos? How do they disclose the financial arrangements of pre-installed sample software?

Testimonials… does it really change how they look on a page to add disclaimers. Have a look at this sales page Howie just posted for one of his programs and look at all the disclaimers in the testimonial boxes. I am not using an affiliate link and am linking because it is the first example I have seen since the new rulings… I am not sure this is the best method – I think a “speech bubble” on mouse over might work better.

John points out us Euros have had to live with this quite a while (I have covered it a lot myself in the past) along with some sound tips – I suppose I should disclose that John leaves great comments and has been known to tweet my articles.

Don’t forget my old post defining 32 kinds of Blogging and Linking Payola – the FTC should really have addressed every form and more – I probably only covered half of them.

Lets finish up with a question… if I updated my old disclosure policy plugin to work with current versions of WordPress, would anyone actually use it? (well I know a few people who might for monetization as it was really effective)
I have had a few enquiries, and the download stats over the last few years suggest there may even be people using it still, though it only supported up to WP2.2 officially.
The plugin was contextual so now for instance Matt Cutts has a full disclosure policy finally he could add the plugin, and on every historical post where he mentioned Google, it could add a short disclosure with a link to a full disclosure policy, or even a specific disclosure policy about Google, both on the page and in his feed.

• Matt probably earns a salary from Google as head of webspam
• Matt has been with Google since 2000, so probably has a few stock options
• If Matt says something about a new Google service that encourages other bloggers to write about it as well, it probably has an effect on Google’s share price, so there is a specific financial incentive.

We have seen how blog discussions can have both a massive positive and negative influence on large company share value, especially with Apple.

Full Disclosure From Google – No Way?

• Matt doesn’t have a comprehensive disclosure policy – he does have a short disclaimer to hide behind
• Matt doesn’t use nofollow on links to his source of income
• Matt used to post messages on popular SEO forums as “Google Guy”, but there was never any specific disclosure

Now whilst Matt has mentioned the FTC in relation to paid links before, it has always been in the sanctuary of his “private” blog. At SES San Jose I believe he is there in his official capacity.

Here are quotes from 2 live bloggers

Tamar at SEO Round Table

Matt is up first. Are paid links evil? He says that this is the wrong question. But the right question is – Do paid links that pass PR violate search engine quality guidelines? The answer is yes.

The FTC has said that you must disclose whether you are being paid to market.
Disclosure on the web: the web is used by both people (surfers) and machines (search engines)

What is adequate disclosure on the web? It is understood by both machines and people.

Make a clear disclosure: this won’t pass PageRank -
- Redirect URL blocked by robots.txt
- redirect through URL that does 302
- JavaScript
- nofollow
- Meta tag with nofollow

The Lisa at Bruce Clay Internet Business Consultants

Matt says that asking if paid links are evil or not is the wrong question. He says the right question is, “Do paid links that pass PageRank violate search engines’ quality guidelines?” The answer to that is yes.

He adds that the FTC has said that word of mouth marketing is like any other kind of marketing, and if you’re being paid to say something you should disclose that. Adequate disclosure means it is understood by both people and the machines.

How do you disclose a paid link to the search engines?

* Redirect through URL locked by robots.txt
* Redirect through URL t hat does a 302
* JavaScript
* Nofollow the link

Google says you can buy links within search engine guidelines – meaning they can’t pass PR. Google doesn’t care about those links. However, you cannot buy links that pass PageRank.

Examples of PPP links – fundraisers, donate cars, online, credit, super slots, providers, junk yards, online casino, bypass pill, dating advice, USA online poker, etc.

Both people and machines have to be able to understand the disclosure?
Also why does Lisa use the PPP acronym and not that of paid links rather than paid reviews?

Lets Take A Look at… YouTube

There is no requirement for disclosure
Views and ratings are counted whether a video is commercial or not, and commercial content can make it to the top of YouTube rankings.

Lets Take A Look At… Referral Units

Seven months ago I first published an article about how Google’s guidelines for their referral units don’t tally with FTC and WOMM.
3 Months ago I highlighted that specific questions regarding WOMM with referral units in response to articles on the Google Adsense blog were going totally unanswered.

So Many Different Compensated Links

Just the other day I wrote about the need for a level playing field for paid links.

Based upon current logic the WOMMA should be kicked out of the SERPs for having paid links on their site, along with all their members.
Hey guys, it only costs $1000 per year to join WOMMA, but you could probably barter a little SEO help and get them to pay you, with all those member pages being counted as duplicate content and supplemental.

WordPress

Matt is known to be a supporter of WordPress, and Google are going to make a lot of money displaying advertising on their high ranking blogs.

Surely Google should also have had a word with them about their linkfarm – I have also written about their linking structure in the past.

Matt Cutts still retains a link to WordPress.org on his blog.

From the WordPress default theme (hidden in a comment)

If you’d like to support WordPress, having the “powered by” link somewhere on your blog is the best way, it’s our only promotion or advertising.

So you are paying for use of WordPress by giving them a link – it is advertising without a nofollow on millions of blogs, not to mention the default blogroll and half the WordPress developers selling text links – yes Matt Cutts is using blogging software funded in part by text links.

Web2.0 Sites

At least one of the following sites is sponsoring a very popular WordPress plugin that gives them links, lots of them, quite certainly from millions of pages.

Digg, Del.icio.us, Netvouz, Dzone, ThisNext, MisterWong, Wists

The Sneaky Javascript Advertising

Javascript advertising and widgets is never totally innocent

If you want to be standards compliant as well as using script tags, you also use noscript, and include a link.

1000s of top search terms are dominated by people using links hidden in noscript that most users never see, and copy and paste without even realising it.

Some also take a standard link, and then modify it using javascript and CSS to look like an image link.

Do these huge corporations using these tactics have to now include nofollow on the noscript links?

For a light-hearted look, I have to post this video

Rentvine created this video, which isn’t their niche – they are a home rental site.

Ultimately it is Google’s search engine, and they want to provide better search results and encourage ethical SEO practice.

When I write a compensated review of a service, I almost always spend hours on them, far more than your average Yahoo intern working for the directory, and I earn far less.
The reviews are always relevant to my audience, and I am selective having turned down the last 3 offers I was made to review sites, over $400 I could have earned but didn’t because I respect my audience, or didn’t feel qualified. I only review a service when I can offer insight, opinion and feedback.

As I have mentioned in the past, this topic is of specific interest because of my future startup plans, where the links will be as “whitehat” as Matt Cutts linking to Google, or Robert Scoble to Podtech

If 100,000 shareholders, employees and companies for whom I provide a very specific service for link to my site, is it going to be webspam if they are linking through to authoritative and highly relevant content? I have no plans to ask them to nofollow the links.

Update: I just read Rand’s writeup at SEOmoz on this paid links session at SES San Jose and it offers insight into the tone of the session, further clarification and there were also revelations from the Q & A afterwards.

#
To Matt Cutts – can Google remove the ability of individual pages to pass linkjuice
_
Matt says that not only can they remove single page’s ability to pass PR, they can also remove the ability of only certain links on a page from passing PR, and do.
_
#
To Matt Cutts – would Google ever ban a large brand for an extended period of time for engaging in manipulative link practices?
_
Matt says that Google had removed a very big site in the past for 43 days in total from the index, and this was noticed by Ben Edelman (sadly, I haven’t ID’d the site or post and Matt did not mention it)

The Ben Edelman reference seems to be in relation to WhenU 3 years ago and it seems that was mainly to do with cloaking.

Andy Beal sums up this SES session

I encourage you to read the notes and digest the information. Like me, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that buying select links from highly relevant pages isn’t going to get you into trouble with Google. Buying tons of spammy, non-relevant, run of site links, probably will.

On a subject like this I will quite happily link through to Fantomaster who sells cloaking software

Will it work? Will the Google monster, the paragon of Web Apartheid, finally relent?

Dana on the Online Marketing Blog likens this to a Transformers battle between Optimus Prime (Matt Cutts) & Megatron (Michael Gray)
I am sure the Toprank team recommend buying links on Yahoo, why is a paid review worse?

Update 2

Yesterday Duncan Riley on Techcrunch attacked the general WordPress attitude to paid links.
It would be interesting to look at how many WordPress developers, theme designers and plugin developers are heavily funded by the sale of text links.

Duncan also attacked Akismet, and he is quite right to do so. Spam Karma, with or without the addition of AKisment is actually equally or more effective at handling spam, and can be integrated with Akismet as an additional check.
It should also be noted that the Akismet “spam count” widget doesn’t use javascript, but is one of the widgets that produced a search engine followable link back to an Automattic owned domain.

As I mentioned recently, WordPress Sponsored themes still exist in large numbers on the theme database. In the comments on Techcrunch, Matt Mullenweg seems to be claiming that they have been all cleared out, but that is far from the case.

Duncan mentions the oft used phrase “people in glass houses” which does ring home my earlier article – A List Bloggers in Crystal Palaces Shouldn’t Throw Stones

Update 3

Michael Gray has now published his powerpoint presentation on Google Paid links.

I am not a user of Text Link Ads, but it seems emails have gone out about some code changes, and that they will now be using TinyURL for the links
TinyURL in itself is a 301 redirect, which could however then link to a further redirect or tracking script. I am not sure a chain of 301 redirects would be a good idea, and using TinyURL on its own is still passing juice.

Aaron Wall is also binging out the big guns, arguing why linkbaiting (which Google supports) is not suitable for all businesses.
Some of Aaron’s bullet points against linkbaiting include:-

• it is expensive
• it is time consuming
• the results are hard to predict
• it requires social connections
• it provides off topic low value traffic
• it typically creates content of limited commercial value (other than the ability to pull in links to rank other pages for stuff they did not have enough relevancy or authority to merit ranking for)

I am not sure how long this has been in the rules at Clickbank, as Clickbank currently block archive.org – that being said I am sure it would have been brought up by someone during the last few months in discussions regarding various paid review services such as PayPerPost, ReviewMe and Sponsored Reviews.

The A-List bloggers concentrated their attacks on the paid reviews services because it made good headlines, and most missed the much more serious implications for affiliate marketing.

Clickbank isn’t a small startup company looking to carve a niche – their daily sales turnover is probably higher than the funding received by any of the paid posts companies. It is only possible to estimate their sales figures, because they are a privately held company. They claim 20,000 sales per day on their website, and typical prices of their digital products are $47 to $67 each, with many of the top sellers costing $77 to $97.
In the past I have asked Clickbank directly for more accurate figures, but as is their privilege that was declined.

As an example, the current top selling ebook launched 6th February, Day Job Killer, an ebook that provides tactics for affiliate marketers using Adwords PPC to drive traffic to various affiliate merchants such as Amazon and Ebay has sold more than 5000 copies in the first 24hrs of release, with a $77+tax price tag, thats $385,000 in sales which many Web2.0 statups can’t achieve in advertising revenue in one month.

A large chunk of that revenue will go to affiliate partners, but that will easily be recouped by backend sales. As an example this is the 3rd Ebook published by the same authors, and I am sure many of the 5000 sales recorded were direct sales by the authors to their private mailing list.

I am not a lawyer, and this blog article is purely a discussion topic for your own amusement and does not represent legal advise.

Here is the specific clause from the Clickbank Rules:-

If you promote products listed by ClickBank, then:

* You agree to make no such promotions that suggest or imply any warranty or other policy that might conflict with ClickBank’s eight week return policy.
* You agree to make no such promotions that involve unlicensed use of materials protected by copyright or trademark law.
* You agree that you will not engage in activities that interfere with our tracking of commissions, or with the normal flow of traffic from affiliates.
* You agree that all such promotions will be fully compliant with federal and state laws, including US federal and state laws regarding network abuse, unsolicited messaging, and FTC Advertising Rules and Disclosure Rules.
* You agree to make no such promotions promising customers rebates, coupons, tickets, or vouchers in connection with their ClickBank purchase.

I have bolded the first line and 2 sections, and I will deal with the second section first

Offering Bonuses for Clickbank Products

The wording is clearly aimed at monetary bonuses as we expected the clarification in Clickbank rules from back in November to contain. Many Clickbank affiliates are still offering cash incentives as this advert for Day Job Killer grabbed yesterday confirms.

I have also received many emails offering cash rebates. With those who I trust and have business dealings with in the past, I just sent a friendly note. It is not like Clickbank send out email notifications of rule changes. In fact the rules changes don’t even make it to their internal news system.

Clickbank and Disclosure

I don’t remember seeing the statement regarding disclosure within the Clickbank Terms of Service when I was last reading them in November.
Whenever Google change their policy statements, everyone knows about it, and discusses it. When they change their Terms of Service, you normally have to agree to the changes, and there is normally word for word analysis by many sites.

The above clauses are clearly intended for affiliates, because the opening line is “If you promote products listed by ClickBank“.

The FTC Disclosure Rules don’t mention the word affiliate, but they frequently mention advertising. I am clear in my own mind that the rules cover both placement adverts, and various forms of word of mouth advertising.

For an Affiliate Marketer, I am fairly open about disclosure. I have a disclosure policy, and there is a link to my disclosure policy with my feed items, both in the form of a custom footer in my posts and RSS feed(Disclosure Policy Plugin for WordPress), and as a Feedburner Feed Flare. Those are my own developed solutions for affiliate disclosure as an alternative to adding (aff) after affiliate links, which might not have meaning to a casual reader.

As I pointed out in my fairly neutral review of Day Job Killer, it is important to conform to all the rules, and some of the techniques in Day Job Killer would be less successful if you plastered “I am trying to sell you something” all over a squeeze page.
I offered a bonus for Day Job Killer, but none are cash equivalents.

Duncan Riley’s research into one of the endorsements on the Day Job Killer sales page is also intriguing. There is also the possibility it is a real person, or a real testimonial with a made up pen name.

I just read a Squidoo Lens promoting Day Job Killer written by a Tax Attorney – it is a shame he is breaking Clickbank’s rules on disclosure, not a disclosure in sight.

It is interesting that Clickbank now require disclosure, and Google effectively prevent disclosure for their referral units.

I would be very interested in the opinion of some more legal experts such as Brian @ Copyblogger or Mike Young

Lots of controversy over V7N and their new contextual links program.

• Darren questions the ethics
• Matt Cutts has “Laid into Them“
• Graywolf Delves in Deep (read my comments there btw and the ones by Jeremy Zawodny)
• Carsten Cumbrowski has made a post I agree with on a link being a pointer, not a vote, or at least should be. I still don’t agree with him on the Wikipedia move as that punishes webmasters who deserve the “vote” as it is currently counted both for positioning and duplicate content. One option is for a couple of Google engineers to spend a week of 20% time fixing their software by adding a voting system for links.
• John Andrews gives his strong views on Matt Cutt’s current attitude:-

Today, Matt’s post was again in-your-face authoritarian. Matt is likely millions richer than he was when he started way back when I tussled with Google for the first time, but I’m not seeing as much “smarts” as I would expect to see. In Matt’s post, he speaks of V7N’s advertising system, and says things like :

• It seems this is what Matt was really up to at the last Google Whipping Session / SEO Convention

V7N Contextual Links

From what I have read so far, this service is very similar to using the alinks plugin for WordPress – that is used by thousands of bloggers with links to Amazon, Clickbank etc.

Here is what Darren wrote about Alinks last year.

Rachel also points out a helpful WordPress Plugin – Auto links which will automatically link to URLs when you mention certain keywords. This is especially handy if you find yourself mentioning site’s regularly. It also has the ability to turn keywords into Amazon searches (with your associate/affiliate ID) which some will find handy.

There doesn’t seem to be any moral problem with using it, and the V7N system is effectively the same, but rather than hoping for an affiliate sale, you get the money up front.

The requirements seem to prevent specific disclosure as Darren does on his blog, such as (aff)

As I wrote about recently, the Adsense Referral Link program effectively prevents you telling your visitors that you earn money if they download the software, but you are allowed to give a hearty recommendation.
As an example Darren now uses the phrase “Recommended Money Makers” for his affiliate links, but in the past I seem to remember he had “Affiliate Links” or something similar – that would indicate earning money from them, which would be against Adsense policy for the referral unit.

Thus the rules for V7N and Adsense are effectively the same regarding disclosure, but are for totally different reasons.

There is however a difference in regards WOMM (Word of Mouth Marketing)

Adsense allow you to express an opinion about the products, V7N I think would prefer you not to even mention them.

There is nothing within the V7N terms preventing you having a general disclosure policy for your blog, and even having a general disclosure with each piece of content you publish.
With Adsense Referral Units, the only way might be to have a general disclosure, and then not place them as advertisements. Maybe they will clarify that sometime.

Many might think that $10 for a link is not a lot of money, but it is just one text link on a page without having to do anything for it.

Google Situation

If Google really don’t like paid links of any kind, they should put their money where their mouth is and add a clause to the Adsense terms banning Adsense on sites which contain paid links.

Lots of web masters would probably react to that by removing…. Adsense, especially from large sites with horrible click-through rates.

Is it Worth Using V7N?

I noticed that they are mainly looking for blog inventory. They are going to get bundles of it – I am also sure lots of forums with 100,000+ pages are going to be pulling on the leash for this kind of offer.

I do foresee that this will also put pressure on other networks to increase their rates, such as PayPerPost. Sorry guys, but in many ways for most of your bloggers, this is a great deal.. but they do go hand in hand.
That being said, PPP is much better value for advertisers, as they do get a review out of it, which to be honest is part of the charm.

I have seen people state that this is too cheap – honestly by not having to do any work it isn’t.

You can buy up old domains that have a large number of content pages and just flog the inventory.

The funny thing is, for many bloggers, just like email marketers, search is not the primary source of traffic, and probably never will be.

I am sure a lot of people will be wondering

• Do they have negotiable rates for advertisers
• Do they have negotiable rates for people with lots of inventory
• Where is the affiliate program?

This video was originally posted on the Google Adsense blog, and the presenter is Laura from Adsense Support.

Now I should point out that Google have been very clear in their wording with all the recent correspondence relating to Adsense changes, which in some ways makes this even more extraordinary.

The interesting bit in regard to financial declarations starts 1min:30 from the start.

It should be noted that this wasn’t recorded live, as you can see from the out-takes at the end, is in response to reader emails, and it seems that the responses were prepared prior to recording.

Here are some quotes:-

You should feel free to recommend and promote a product you are displaying a referral button for, but please don’t use language that implies that users should visit your referral site, or benefit you financially.

A later example also allows you to use the word “click” and give a strong recommendation – Word of Mouth Marketing

I use Firefox and use it to browse the web

I love Picassa, click here to get this great software

An example that would not be appropriate would be

click on these links to help me earn money

Now it was only a month or so ago that there was a huge amount of blogger attention regarding a letter issued by the FTC in regards word of mouth advertising. Many bloggers directed their attention to various paid blog post monetization models and said that this legislation was directed at them.
Many lawyers however also pointed out that this affected various forms of affiliate marketing.

Adsense Referral Unit (potentially) = Affiliate Marketing = Word of Mouth Marketing

So based upon that theory, anyone using Adsense Referral Units, and who in any way reviews a related product, or encourages someone to use a product that is part of the Adsense referral program showing on a page, should make a disclosure of some kind.

How This Might Affect You?

This actually depends on how you normally declare affiliate links when you are recommending a product.

Some of the recommendation links are very normal looking such as

Firefox with Google Toolbar (btw that isn’t a referral link)

Now I know many bloggers who would write something like this. They do that with every other affiliate link, so they should do the same for a Google one.

I Love Firefox, Click this link Firefox with Google Toolbar (aff)

But their readers understand that any link with (aff) after it helps to support the blogger. It isn’t quite “Click on these inks to help me make money”, but it is very close to that situation I am sure on many blogs, forums etc which have a very honest and open disclosure policy.

How about if you have a more general disclosure policy such as I have, or maybe a statement that your site is advertising funded, or a visit our sponsors section?

Adsense referral buttons are fairly inviting

You can obviously refrain from writing reviews about Adsense products, but it seems Google want to encourage WOMM (Word of Mouth Marketing).

If Google want to use WOMM, they have to allow their affiliates a free reign to declare they are being compensated for any referrals, however they like with no restraint.

I am actually quite happy with many of the changes that have been made with the Adsense guidelines. The Adsense team have been very forthcoming with information

I also know that a little guy is going to be more worried about complying with the Adsense policies and terms that this could easily be a major stumbling block in widely adopted disclosure.

Remember, I have a toolbar buttons site. One of the ways I intend to monetise that site is the referral buttons, especially when the new Firefox Google Toolbar comes out of beta.

Update: Google’s Dan Friedman has written a clarifying post on referral units that I had hoped would clear up this issue, but in all honestly it makes things even more confusing.
Clickbank now require affiliates to disclose, and Google seem to prevent that.

Surely if you are a US company, doing business with the UK, you should have to comply with UK regulations.

I am busy working out how I can comply with SI (3429 of 2006) as a niche marketer who doesn’t necessarily want to flag all his niche websites for his competition to go have a look.
It is not so straight forward, especially if you want to also allow people with disabilities equal access to the information.

I can see a situation sometime in the future of a tit-for-tat exchange, or for non-compliance with SI (3429 of 2006) being used as a legal argument to leverage decisions in UK courts.

As an example, could non-compliance be used to encourage help with complaints with Paypal?

I am not a lawyer, thus any interpretation of the situation I am going to leave in the hands of lawyers who I have a great deal of respect for, and who themselves are involved in the internet marketing field.

First of all the “opinion” from the FTC (PDF LINK)

For some reason I read Darren’s post today before Brian’s (who is a lawyer) – there is some interesting discussion in both threads.

I then read Dr. Tony Hung’s opinion (he is a Dr of medicine) but the opinions are very valid.

Mike Young is a lawyer, specializing in internet law and wrote about this topic yesterday on the Copywriters Blog, his internet law blog, and there is further discussion on the copywriters board.

Other mentions I haven’t fully digested yet

FTC May Regulate Pay Per Post @ Techcrunch – The Techcrunch post targets Pay Per Post, which in my opinion is actually totally missing out on the much target picture. It also affects many of the companies Techcrunch cover who use affiliate programs for monetization.
FTC tells PayPerPost to knock it off at Matthew Ingram – Matthew does mention affiliate marketing, thus why target PPP with this. This affects Google more than PPP.

This affects Amazon, Google, Ebay, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Linkshare and a host of other billion dollar companies that allow affiliates to link directly through to a particular product or service.

For WordPress users, the perfect solution is my Disclosure Policy Plugin.