A couple of bloggers today raised the issue of conflicts of interest when bloggers run ads on their sites. This comes on top of stories in UK’s The Register about Google adding a gag clause to one of its advertising programs and in The Guardian suggesting that bloggers are altering their content to attract advertisements on a particular popular topic in the hope of getting more clickthroughs.
Elwyn Jenkins of Microdoc-news suggests:
Over the past few months, bloggers have been able to add advertising to their sites. Suddenly, bloggers are no longer the free agents they were once — they have some responsibilities because they are earning money. He who pays, says! There are rules and regulations about what you can and cannot say on your blog otherwise you get kicked off the advertising system. So, where is this free-speech stuff?
And Dave Winer today said that he doesn’t and will not accept ad dollars on his blog. (Rather easy to say, given that Dave has said that his blogging has brought him hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, while most bloggers who use Google ads are lucky to bring in 40 bucks a month.) Dave adds:
As Jenkins explains, the Google ad bar is a huge disclaimer saying “I can’t talk about Google.” And since Google is known to put gag orders in their agreements, who knows what other gag orders they’ve put in their agreements. We depend on light to get our information. Now Google is a source of dark.
Here’s my take:
(1) The idea that a blogger who runs ads is automatically compromised or “less free” is preposterous. It’s a simple-minded view of the world to suggest that “ad-free blogging = honest commentary” and “ad-supported media = darkness.”
(2) Advertising is good for the weblog community. If people can scratch out a living by blogging, supported by their ideas and some modest ad income, more power to them.
(3) If I want to criticize Google on this blog, and run Google AdSense, I will, amended user agreement or not. And I have. For instance, here and here.
(4) We’re at the beginning of a long period in which the same issues that have long bedeviled journalism and the news media are filtering down into the blogosphere, centering on conflicts of interest and advertising.
(5) While that threat is real, I haven’t seen anyone point to an example in which a blogger has traded away his blog credibility for advertising dollars. If you do compromise your truth-telling on your blog, we’ll call you out. If it’s happening today, show us the conflicts.
(6) Jenkins is ultimately right with his bottom-line admonition: “Bloggers . . . be bloggers and not wimps swaying with whatever monetary breeze may flow today.”
Related background: Search engines and editorial integrity.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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