Dec 2, 2009

More Transparency and Disclosures Than Ever Here at CFO

I try to be as forthright as possible about affiliate links and so forth. But I haven't felt it necessary to point out that every Amazon link is an affiliate link because I figure people already know. However, after reading Brandchannel's post, it appears that failure to do so may violate the FTC's new blogger guidelines. I think the easiest thing for me to do is create a tag for "Affiliate & Sponsored Links." I will continue to disclose such links in the posts themselves, but this will give me an added safety net where the FTC is concerned in case I forget.

You can read the complete CFO disclosure and disclaimer here. And as always, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about what you read here at CFO.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

5 comments:

Kacie said...

I typically add an * directly after the affiliate link, and then at the bottom of the post say:

*Referral link

That way, it doesn't interrupt the flow of my thought, especially if there's more than one link per post.

Mercedes said...

Thanks Cathy,

As a readers of blogs, I agree with Brandchannel that repetitive disclosure wears on readers. However, I do like the idea of creating and using the tag very helpful.

Mercedes

Anonymous said...

I'm so confused by all of this. I thought the FTC wanted to focus on false claims about products...not if I tell someone that X is on sale and then they like the price and happen to buy it from my affiliate link.

I do like the tag idea.

Christy said...

I really like the idea of a tag. Thanks for "keeping us informed!"

Chief Family Officer said...

@Kacie - Good idea, I might start doing that too.