FTC Guidelines
<span style=”color: #ff0000;”><strong>Affiliate Disclaimer – FTC Read THIS.</strong></span> <span style=”font-size: xx-small;”>On October 7, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission put out some </span><a href=”http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm” target=”_blank”><span style=”font-size: xx-small;”>guidelines regarding online testimonials</span></a><span style=”font-size: xx-small;”> – basically, if a company pays us or gives us goodies in exchange for a positive testimonial, we have to disclose that. So far we haven’t been so lucky, but feel free to test our moral fiber. It’s…fibrous.</span> <span style=”font-size: xx-small;”>What’s a little unclear is whether we have to disclose affiliate links on our websites – you know, the ones where you click the link to buy something and the person posting the link gets a commission back.</span> <span style=”font-size: xx-small;”>So, just to be safe, here’s the official unofficial website affiliate link disclosure – if a product or service linked to on this site has an affiliate program, you can safely bet that the link we’re using is an affiliate link. You can also safely bet that each and every product or service linked to or reviewed by OUR WEBSITE is owned by us or our clients, and we have put it to some hard use before we bother signing up for an affiliate program and putting links or pretty ad banners on here.</span> <object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ width=”425″ height=”355″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0″><param value=”high” /><param value=”sameDomain” /><param value=”true” /><param value=”http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/multimedia/video/endorsement-guides/endorse_mary-question2.swf” /><param value=”transparent” /><param value=”true” /><param value=”high” /><embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”355″ src=”http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/multimedia/video/endorsement-guides/endorse_mary-question2.swf” quality=”high” wmode=”transparent” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”sameDomain”></embed></object> Anyway…you, your friends, neighbors, and the good ol’ U.S. Government should consider yourself notified, disclaimed, and generally told.