Video: Honest Blogging

As is known there has been quite a lot of discussion about the influence of gifts and other inducements to bloggers from sites and companies they blog about. This follows as FTC (The Federal Trade Commission) has taken interest in regulation of bloggers whose opinions can be influenced by gifts and payments.

In a recent conference, bloggers talk about how responsible they are and how honest they are about their opinions. Listen to what the blogger says in the video above.

Whatever this blogger may say, bloggers who review products for a consideration cannot say the product is bad, even if it is bad. They shall not be paid if they write so. What a blogger writes about a product is equal to advertising and it is at par with any other form of advertising. It is common knowledge. And no body can say they are honest in publishing such reviews.

Most of the bloggers publish in their blogs a general disclosure policy saying that they accept money for writing product reviews and they also claim that it won’t affect their views or the opinions expressed by them. This in essence is just a blank statement that does not carry any meaning just because no body pays for negative advertising.

So the claim that the opinion of the bloggers is not influenced by payment is just a lie, may be to complete some legal formality. For the same reason the Disclosure Policy itself is dishonest, as you cannot strictly go by your published policy!