Thanks for the feedback on the FAQs. I have forwarded your comments to PPP support. I’m a strong believer in communicating well with your customers — both by informing them and by listening to their preferences.

I like the example you provided of in-post disclosure by a Postie. If WP.com wanted to make that exact sentence/badge mandatory for all sponsored posts on WP.com, you would get the disclosure you feel is appropriate while also allowing WP.com bloggers to get compensated for their time/efforts/talents.

I’m sure PPP could even help educate bloggers and sponsors of that requirement for WP.com blogs. Sounds like a pretty clear win-win to me without WP.com dictating disclosure/TOS-choices for the rest of the blogosphere. Can we work towards some common ground like that?

Full disclosure? I don’t see full on any of the pages at PayPerPost except in the press release titled “PayPerPost Requires Disclosure by Marketplace Participants”.

Consistent disclosure in a post in no way seems one-size-fits-all, which you seem to be implying. You can offer a number of sizes. How many ways are there really to clearly disclose that a post is paid for?

Why do you think other media has specific consistency requirements? Like the magazine example that Jason Calacanis presented so thoroughly? Content that is commercial needs to be obvious without examining the content in detail. I am certain your advertisers and content creators support this, and likely most already do this. Here is an example of clear disclosure.

With no small amount of irony, your Advertiser FAQ’s link “Please see more details here.” does not work. The HTML code should be ‘href’ not ‘hef’. I am very surprised that had could go unnoticed since… December?!

(Blogger FAQ: does not mention disclosure once, it would be wise to explicitly mention it and link to the “Please refer to the Terms of Service”)

(Blogger FAQ: “Currently, bloggers have been banned for the following reasons:” is blank, that is not useful)

That’s pretty easy. PPP’s marketplace participants see their blogs as their property, not PPP’s, and want the right to disclose in a form they deem best for their site and content. They accept PPP’s requirement of full disclosure of potential conflicts, but don’t support a one-size-fits-all approach for doing it.

Therefore, PPP provides tools (e.g. in-post disclosure badges, disclosure policies) to both content creators and sponsors to maximize the transparency of their transactions in the marketplace. PPP also provides guidance to both sides on the importance of transparency, such as here: http://blog.payperpost.com/2007/03/disclose-disclose-disclose.html

For comparison, I would note that free hosts such as WordPress.com have a different relationship with their customers — WP.com actually owns the servers and bandwidth in question. Therefore, WP.com may carry more responsibility for what is on their servers and WP.com customers may more readily accept WP.com telling them what to do on their blogs. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, just different.

The good news is that there is overlap between the two whereby WP.com can tell their bloggers exactly how to disclose sponsored content without dictating behavior to the rest of the blogosphere. That is why I asked my question above about individualism vs. collectivism. The collectivists typically want everyone to follow their rules; whereas the individualists recognize everyone’s right to make their own choices with their own property.

Differing perspectives can play a big role in misunderstandings and I hope this detail helps match the opportunity we’re each seeing…

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I am reluctant to generalize, and want to stay focused to the current specific topic.

What is stopping you from requiring your customers to display in a consistent manner that an article is paid for “creative” content?

Thank you,
Lloyd

You said many things in your post, some observations, some opinions, some suggestions. I’ll gladly take a shot at answering your question if you ask it directly.

It would also help to know where you are on the spectrum of individualism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism ) vs. collectivism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism ). It could help me answer in terms you will best internalize. Many of people’s views on this business stem directly from where they are on that spectrum and no matter how thorough answers are, it’s almost impossible to change views on whether people should enjoy freedom and carry responsibility for their own actions.

Thanks!