What Should Go on a Disclaimer Page
TweetIf you want to be taken seriously as a blogger then you might want to think about adding a disclaimer page to your site. The key to the page is to disclose any potential conflict of interest you may have between yourself and what you are writing about. It is our belief that too much disclosure is better than not enough, but there is a large gray area covering what is considered necessary and what may be going too far. Think of sites like CNN.com. If they talk about Money Magazine or take a quote from them, the author will normally include that they are owned under the same corporate umbrella so the reader knows about the tie between the two companies. How about if CNN.com talks about Netflix, do you see them adding to the story that NetFlix buys banner ads on the site? Not at all. So when should you disclose?
Financial Association
If you have a financial association with the subject of your post or story then you should disclose it. I don't mean advertising, which should seem obvious to the visitor. If they see banner ads posted everywhere then they should know that you are geting paid for that space and aren't displaying banners out of the kindness of your heart. However, you should disclose when you are an owner or part-owner of a company displayed or talked about on your site. If you are getting paid by the company you are writing about, either as an employee or as a contractor, then you should disclose that. You should also put up a discloser if you are in financial competition with a company you are writing about. If an owner of MySpace is going to write about how terrible Facebook is, then don't you think you should know there might be a financial gain for them if MySpace is chosen over Facebook by the reader?
Personal Involvement
The slippery slope comes in to play when you talk about personal involvement. If a friend owns a company you are writing about, you may want to mention it. How close of a friend does it have to be before it's worth mentioning? Well, I supposed that is up to the writer to decide, but I prefer being overly informative. If you are talking about a family member though, you should let the reader know about your relationship.
What do you think should go on the disclaimer page or be disclosed by writers? Have you seen a site disclose too much or not enough? Let's hear about it in the comments.