This blog is not primarily financially driven.
-pretty much everyone with a blog, ever.
That sentence is how most disclosure pages begin. It happens to be true in this case, but that’s not really what I want to talk about; because the fact is, whether or not this site was created with intent of making money, it currently makes a little bit of money.
The purpose of a disclosure page–and more particularly, this disclosure page–is to tell you exactly how that money gets made.
The reason I do is twofold:
- Firstly, this page ensures that if you do not want to contribute to the making of said money, you can avoid doing so.
- Secondly, the FTC requires that such things are disclosed.
According to the FTC, these rules are in place to create awareness whenever or wherever there could be “hidden interests” or “unspoken biases” related to recommendations.
And so, in the interest of disclosure (ahem), please know that I do often make money for recommendations; if you click a link and buy something I may very well get a commission–that’s what pays the bills for things like hosting, newsletter services, and this schmancy website design.
Disclosing that make sense; however, per FTC rules, any recommendation or endorsement of any kind be either completely unbiased (which is impossible), or I have to disclose my relationship with that person or potential benefit from making said recommendation or endorsement.
This means, for example, that if I put a link to a female fitness bloggers site, I might have to say, “just so you know, I made out with this chick one time at a conference.”
Okay, the FTC doesn’t specifically state that I have to disclose when I get to first base, but I’m trying to make a point, and it’s this: if I had to disclose each instance of previous benefit or potential future benefit, it would be a nightmare for me and a headache for my readers; each article would be riddled with a parenthetical statement explaining that I might have gotten or may yet receive anything from money to stock to gifts to food.
In the interest of making this blog better, covering me legally, and keeping things simple, please assume that if I post a link to a product, service, webpage, or article, I may have gotten or will eventually receive any and all of the following:
So, again: this blog doesn’t exist specifically to make money, but it makes money. Hope that’s cool with you.
Another thing worth disclosing is that I am an investor in and/or advisor to a few companies, including (but not limited to) Pavlok, BioTRUST Nutrition, EXO, Fitocracy, JackedPack, Causes International, and a few others. If you see links to any of these companies on the site, please know that I have a small role in helping them succeed, and that in the long run, I stand to make money from them.
I think that about covers it.
Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, I wet the bed until I was 10. I figured if you bothered to read this entire page, you should know that about me. Seriously. Ten years old. Crazy.
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