• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, January 24, 2006

Online buzz marketing practitioners owe it to potential campaign targets, not to mention clients, to fully and frequently disclose their relationship with the company whose products or services they're hawking. While this would seem to be an obvious ethical caveat, the folks at Boston-based BzzAgent have clarified their disclosure policies to ensure that there's no room for misinterpretation among their 120,000 volunteer "agents." BzzAgent is also calling on peers to similarly fortify their guidelines.

"There should be an upfront statement along the lines of 'I'm a volunteer, I received this product as part of a program,' " says BzzAgent CEO Dave Balter. He notes a recent study linking word-of-mouth campaign performance with full disclosure about strategies and tactics being employed, suggesting that online buzz marketers now have a business reason, in addition to the ethical obligation, to be open about marketer affiliations.

While Balter recalls some sketchy buzz-based programs from years past -- chat-room moles, corporate faux-bloggers -- he believes the industry has embraced self-regulation. "You're always going to have smaller firms built on deceptive practices, but clients have gotten wise to them," he notes. "It's not as lawless out there as it used to be."