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PayPerPost VC Defends Ethics of Paid Blogging
An anonymous reader writes "PayPerPost venture capitalist and board member Dan Rua defends the ethics of paid editorials. He claims PayPerPost is 'good for the internet' and is not simply blackhat SEO. Rua states that PayPerPost has blown past its milestone of 15,500 bloggers, and is earning hundreds of thousands in monthly revenue. He describes PayPerPost's most viral product yet — ReviewMyPost — which pays people to link to paid posts. The LA Times accuses PayPerPost of paying bloggers to make up fictional testimonials. For instance, the Times reports that a law firm is using PayPerPost to pay bloggers to write that a certain birth control patch is killing and injuring young women. Rua does not deny these claims, but simply states they are the exception and not the rule. How long before the FTC follows through on their promise to enforce blogger disclosure?"
Paid bloggers are almost as trustworthy as, I dunno, fake critics from even larger corporations..
If neither TV nor papers are legally obliged to report only true stories, why should bloggers?
Why would anybody *believe* something they read on the Internets?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Anonymity breeds distrust in public communication. Whether it's trolling for fun or misinforming for profit, the upshot is a building general distrust of the communications channel itself. It is literally communications breakdown.
The only solution to this is full authentication of every user on every computer throughout the net, with some government controlled centralized database. In other words, DRM on steroids. And the total end of anonymous political dissent.
Which is worse? I have my opinion.
Not all anonymity is used to troll for fun or spread misinformation. Those two behaviors lead to the defamation of anonymity, though, and that's what causes people to be so upset.
If only there were a way to weed out the trolls and misinformers. Well, there is. It's called moderation. Now what do we do when the mods themselves share opinions with trolls and misinformers? What do we do when the mods actively participate, for whatever reason, in the trolling or the spread of misinformation? Theoretically the mods are objective judges but I don't think that quite plays out into reality.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
A marketing executive claiming that fraudulently misrepresenting paid propaganda as objective third party opinion is somehow okay?
He's the one that should be in jail, not the so-called terrorists.
It's a real shame truth-in-advertising law hasn't caught up with them yet.
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Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
I don't think the goal is "expose the personal details of everyone". I think the goal is "for everyone paid to write something, make them write that they *were* paid to write something or they won't get their money".
I still think writing what they're told in exchange for a check is ridiculous, but at least now you'd know which ones were paid. (Or, rather, you'd know which ones were written by people getting paid by companies who demanded they write that.) In any event, disclosing that you're getting paid does nothing to erode anonymity.
How's it any different than all the obvious Apple ads that get posted as "news" right here on /.?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Really good blogging and podcasting etc are the result of good editing. Encouraging volume goes against that.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
How do you intend to enforce a law saying that bloggers must reveal that they have been paid for a positive review, without compromising the anonymity and freedom that people enjoy on the internet?
In order to prove that a blogger is in fact acting against the FTC rule, you would have to show that they are explicitly receiving money in exchange for the review. Since neither people involved in the transaction have any incentive to reveal the transaction, you have go with a bunch of very expensive, and very dangerous (from a civil liberties standpoint) activities such as undercover sting operations like creating fake law enforcement blogs (which is the very crime they are supposedly fighting against), massive phone tapping and email tapping... or some sort of licensing and supervision scheme for blogs.
Of course, it is even harder than with something like drugs, because if the people involved don't explicitly agree to some sort of payment deal, and just have an unspoken understanding, you can't charge them with anything. Apple could easily just send out a check (or more likely, free "evaluation" Apple products), with no explanation or stated strings attached, to bloggers who give a positive review of Apple products. There would be absolutely no evidence whatsoever to convict Apple on any misdealing. Unless you want to throw people in jail or fine them on purely circumstantial evidence, which most would consider a grave violation of civil liberties.
There is no way to enforce any kind of rule on this in any effective way, without compromising the freedom, anonymity of the internet, and the civil liberties of those on the internet.
No, let Google and all the other private sites go nuts, and then insure that the FTC and FDA and USGA, you name it, become trustworthy sources of information, that aren't in the hands of the people they regulate, by electing politicians who will turn them around. I don't care how many phonies are out there. The only part of the net we have a right to regulate is that run by government with taxpayer dollars. In other words, .gov and .mil are under public control.
What?