If you’re following the whole blogger disclosure issue, here’s a new site called DisclosurePolicy.org. Its purpose is to generate a disclosure policy for your blog.

This is something I’ve been interested in, as I have some disclosures on my About page, but they aren’t formalized in any way. If bloggers followed a template, the consistency would make this type of page more understandable to readers.

But what’s odd, is that another purpose of DisclosurePolicy.org may in fact be viral marketing for PayPerPost, a company that pays bloggers to write about certain subjects. According to TechCrunch, PayPerPost is paying “PayPerPosties” to post the disclosure policy on their blogs. DisclosurePolicy.org is run by PayPerPost.

So TechCrunch is down on it. Meanwhile, I’m a bit fascinated by the audacity of PayPerPost to basically co-opt an issue that some bloggers were thinking about. While the brainstorming sessions were going on, PayPerPost came up with a solution on their own, and I have a strange admiration for their industriousness in whipping up a well-designed site and coming up with an easy solution in a short period of time.

Yet however slick the solution looks, I don’t think the generated disclosures are that great. For example, take a look at the DisclosurePolicy.org-generated DisclosurePolicy.org disclosure, which in my humble opinion, isn’t disclosing (recursion again) enough information. Yes, it lists PayPerPost as the employing company (good on that). But what is the purpose of this site? Is it really intended to help bloggers with disclosure policies, or is it intended to promote PayPerPost? As a reader I don’t know. It’s probably both.

I think a better disclosure policy would be thought of from the point of view of the reader. What information would a reader want to know about a blog, in order to alleviate concerns of deception? I think the intended purpose of a website would be key.

The paucity of the DisclosurePolicy.org disclosure is more evident through comparison. For example, check out this one: Womma.org. It answers the “Why?” question succinctly with a mission statement.

And here’s the About page at TechCrunch. More is better, and it leaves me with the feeling that this guy is really putting himself out there.

Here’s some more: Deep Jive Interests, Scoble (Maybe the secret is having a photograph of yourself).

Anyhow, in comparison the DisclosurePolicy.org disclosure looks relatively sparse and leaves me with more questions than answers.

Now, I am not in any way saying that any blog selling stuff is bad, and I am totally aware that in a free market, there will always be people motivated by money and doing borderline sneaky, unethical things to make a quick buck. Product placement in movies comes to mind.

The final question ultimately is, where do you as a blogger stand. Do you want to shill stuff for cash or is there a higher level to what you’re trying to achieve through your blog? That will probably drive the openess of your disclosure policy and hence how people see your blog.

If your purpose is to have fun and make a buck any which way you can, then knock yourself out with PayPerPost. But personally, I also desire to be trustworthy, to provide reliable information, to be a better writer, and gain a good reputation in the blog world, all things that lean towards a more extensive disclosure than what DisclosurePolicy.org provides.

Maybe these generated disclosure pages could be used as a starting point for writing a better one. It also would be good to look at mission statements of various corporations. And lastly, maybe a blog reader survey to figure out what information web surfers are looking for, and what makes them trust one blog over another.

Here are some varying opinions on the subject. Allied, Intuitive Life Business Blog, and Deep Jive Interests.

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