On Monday, October 5th, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published some new regulations guidelines with regard to bloggers and product endorsements. While I'm certain they will be challenged, possibly even successfully, for now they are what they are.
What does this mean for The Sanity Point? For now, not much. I'm a SharePoint guy, and pretty much everyone knows it. I like SharePoint and I always have. Besides, I very rarely "review" or "endorse" products at all. I normally just provide information to help you figure out how to make them work (or work better) if you've already purchased them. I occasionally comment on the news, or my personal life.
But this rule change does point out that until now I haven't put forth any kind of statement with regard to policy on this blog. So, with a nod and an apology to the Public Radio program called "Whad'Ya Know?", I now list my own "Four Disclaimers" for this web site.
1. These Opinions are My Own, and They are Only Opinions
The opinions expressed on this web site are my own. They do not necessarily reflect those of my employers, clients, friends, neighbors, or the dog down the street. They are not the "Official Word" of any company, unless I am quoting from their own information. Such quotes will be clearly identified.
I am not a Doctor, Lawyer, Financial, or Menu advisor, nor do I play one on TV. Any statements made on this site are those of an informed layman. Even "best practices" are not always the best in every situation. Statements that are within my field of expertise, which describe what I would generally consider good practices, may not apply in your particular circumstance. Please make complete and verifiable backups and confirm your situation with your own local resources before taking "irreversible" actions.
I employ the Akismet spam blocker, and moderate the comments on this site. While I won't usually block a comment from someone who is critical or disagrees with me, I will not approve obvious spam, repeated posts, comments which (solely in my opinion) are in bad taste, or marketing posts that simply refer someone to their own product site. Comments that are approved may be edited if required to reflect the above-listed standards.
2. I Don't Do Paid Reviews, but I Do Accept Legal Free Stuff
While I very happily share my experience and expertise on the products I'm familiar with, nobody pays me to write the stuff on this site. In fact, nobody pays me anything at all for anything on this site, except copies of my book. If I like something, I'll say so. If I think something could be improved, I'll say that too.
That said, in IT, companies are always providing trial and demo copies of software, sometimes for download, often by the stack at conventions and other events. Sometimes these are full copies, other times they have timeouts, or functionality limited in other ways.
If I find such a product useful, I might write about it. Whether I paid for it or not, I always get it through some legal channel. I do not break my own NDA's, and I don't attempt to circumvent those of others by getting software through a back-channel where the NDA isn't presented to me.
I don't run random ads on my site. I link to Amazon so you can purchase copies of my book. I wrote the book - of course I benefit from you buying it! I also have an Amazon a-Store. Products purchased there can result in a commission for me. While it isn't linked from this site right now, if I do link to it, understand that all selected products in it are those that I would recommend to anyone, no matter where they might purchase them.
The MVP Award I just received does come with some goodies that could be considered "substantial"; however, it is not based on product endorsements. Rather, it is a reward based on recent past exceptional community participation, not a payment for any particular service or statement.
3. The Sky is Blue, Birds Fly, and Fish Swim. It's What They Do. Get Over It.
4. I Value Your Privacy
This site employs conventional web reporting technologies, such as logs, and scripts from Google Analytics and Feedburner. Google's privacy policies apply to their services. By the very nature of the Internet, information available to all web sites (not just this one) includes visitor source IP addresses, objects viewed, browser capabilities, session cookies, and several other types of information, all of which may be included in these logs and/or passed on to the analytics service. Other than this, and the information you enter into comments, I don't collect potentially personally identifiable information. I don't sell even the little information that is collected to anyone.