Paul & Rok discuss affiliate links & being a transparent blogger. This is an issue close to me, as I contributed to Rok's book and would love to somehow recoup something for my time, but the transparency police jump down our throats when we try to make a buck. If we're honest, and you can look at a couple years worth of blog posts to figure that out, and we want to pimp a product, so be it!

For the record, I'm not collecting any revenues through an affiliate link because I'm promoting Rok's book on the AMA HotTopic tour as well. so I'm keeping some hard lines to ensure that I'm not called on the carpet, even though I believe that anyone in a corporation who wants to use RSS for anything should read Rok's book or hire someone who has read it and can guide you as your consultant.

Are you one of the transparency police officers?

No, I'm one of the criminals. ;) I use affiliate links for the e-book as well as some Amazon books. I suppose they should be disclosed, but I've been too lazy. I'll go work on that now.

I see nothing wrong with a blogger offering an affiliate link to a product or service they endorse. The problem starts when Bloggers post just to create these links that the line is crossed. You rarely hear the transparency police complain about AdSense. Yet, that is anything but a personal endorsement. Some people are so sensitive!

Transparency police~? Who needs to put up with entertaining such Commie nonsense. Not me. I'm a staunch capitalist and have no problem with the fact that one of my blogs is there precisely to show affiliate ads. I don't allow comments on that site, but not because of spam. The spammers, I could handle, but bling-blanged if I'd let someone post an anticommercial screed onto my sites.