Disclosure policy -

Following on from week 5's reading on blogging and conflicts of interests I've written my own disclosure policy (with help from disclosure.policy.org which generates a personalised disclosure through a step-by-step process).

I appreciate the ludicrousness of having a policy for a zen-minimalist-type blog that has absolutely no conflict of interest except my personal preferences (my favourite colour is green) and my employment (I work in book publishing) but reading Penelope Trunk's views on blogging and conflicts of interest compelled me to get something down.

Penelope writes a well-polished spin of the truth, and although her post is fascinating (in a I-can't-look-away-from-the-car-crash way) I thought her blog eradicated her credibility and painted her as an exploitative opportunist. The comment by Aussie writer (right near the end) summed up my response to her view that

"[r]eaders should not care about the business dealings of the writers or their publishers."

Aussie writer's response:

"Your argument for not disclosing is self-serving and flawed. I refer you to the cash for comments scandal in Australia."

And so, because Penelope does not accept responsibility (a theme linking to my last blog about defamation on the net), I've knocked up a disclosure policy (um, without having much to disclose...).

This policy is valid from 04 September 2009

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. I write for my own purposes. However, I may be influenced by my background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.

As owner of this blog I am not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely mine. If I claim or appear to be an expert on a certain topic or product or service area, I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest. However, I am employed by Cengage Learning and so am naturally biased towards them.