Policies

Disclosure Policy (updated July 2013)

As a lover of all things tech and geeky, I often review products and events, not only for my own research, but to share my opinions with others. They are just that — opinions.

From time to time, companies will send me products to try, free of cost. Also, when I attend events (conference, meetup, etc.) I often receive free samples of software, gadgets, or other products.

Whenever I review or refer to a product that was provided to me, I will make it clear in the post. I provide not only details of how I received the product, but I often link to the company itself. My reviews are honest, and if done at the request of a company, rest assured that the compensation of cash or product does not have any bearing on the content. If I do not like a product, I will either not review it on the blog, or I will state the reasons why I don’t like it.

If I purchased the product, I will not necessarily state that in the post.

From time to time, I do accept sponsored posts, for which I am paid in cash or other compensation. When I do that, I make it clear in the post and include a link to this policy.

Also — please note that I work full-time for a college called Valencia College. Often, I will post links to stories that my company has helped produce. When I do, I will attempt to make that clear but am not ever paid to share my professional content on my personal blog or social networks.

Questions? Please e-mail me (josh at professorjosh dot com) or refer to the FTC’s ruling on blogger disclosure:

FTC Rules on Sponsored Conversations

NOTE: I have adopted a new policy for disclosure outside of my blog:

• #ad: denotes that a brand has paid me to copy and paste a specific message and share it with little or no modifications
• #spon: denotes that I have been compensated for a blog post BUT the message is my own
• #freebie: denotes that a product was sent to me — solicited or not — free of charge (in some cases, it’s in exchange for a review and in many cases, it’s just for me to try out with no expectation of review)

More legal speak:

This policy is valid from 26 July 2013

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact Josh Murdock.

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

The owner(s) of this blog would like to disclose the following existing relationships. These are companies, organizations or individuals that may have a significant impact on the content of this blog. We are employed by or consult with: Valencia College.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

Privacy Policy

Notice Regarding Online Behavioral Advertising.

We allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our Web site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org.