Operation Bob

I signed up for sponsoredreviews.com, a site that connects bloggers with advertisers.  Advertisers pay a small fee to have you review their product, site, service, or whatever on your blog. 

Looking through the policy I was pleased to see that they require disclosure, meaning you have to tell your readers that you are getting paid to review.  They say it’s up to you how you disclose - you can do a site-wide disclosure informing your readers that some posts may be paid (which I have) or you can put it in the individual post (which I do whenever I do a paid post.) 

However, going through the list of requests, there is more than one where the advertiser specifically says you cannot put in the post that this is a paid post.  One even says you can’t put it in a review category.  What?  I assume what these advertisers mean is that it’s OK for you to have a site-wide policy on a page somewhere that says you do paid posts, but they don’t really want it associated with the post you’re doing for them. 

In my opinion if you’re not doing anything shady there should be no reason to hide anything.  Paid or not, I don’t write anything I don’t believe.  Still, I refuse to write a paid post without telling my readers right there in the post that it’s sponsored.  If I can’t make a buck honestly, I’ll do without.

Fortunately, not all the advertisers on there make this requirement so I see no reason to avoid doing business with the ones I find reputable and ethically compatible.

I’ve sent a message to SponsoredReviews asking for clarification.  We’ll see what comes in reply.

UPDATE: I recieved a prompt reply from SponsoredReviews, below…

“We do not require in-post disclosure. Advertisers are free to ask for it if they want. As for honesty, we do not allowed “made-up” stories about advertisers products. Nobody is asking for bloggers to make up positive stories about their products. A review can simply be an overview of the advertisers product based on facts. If you prefer to disclose all reviews, then please do not bid on the reviews that require no in-post disclosure. It’’s up to each blogger to decide. -support”

So, it seems my assumption was correct.  Advertisers can forbid you from disclosing within the post that it is sponsored.  I guess it’s a matter of opinion whether a site-wide disclosure is sufficient, and at least the site requires that.  Since I prefer in-post discolusre in addition to site-wide, I will do as support suggests, and simply won’t bid on assignments with such a requirement.