PayPerPost thinks it's a good idea to have a disclosure policy on every website to let readers know if there's any exchange of money and how that money affects the website's contents.  Using the Disclosure Policy Generator, I created one (Edit:  It's gone now.  Here's why.).  The most important part is this:  "Even though the owner of this blog receives compensation for his posts or advertisements, he always gives his honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products."  That's been my deal since the beginning of this PayPerPost thing, and that's how it's gonna be.  I don't mind checking out a new website and offering my opinion on it.  But if the website's owner is requiring me to give a positive opinion of it and I don't have a positive opinion of it, I'm not gonna do it. 

TechCrunch really hates PayPerPost and their supposedly dirty tactics.  So does Matt (whose last name is WordPress [not really]).  And so do a bunch of their commenters.  It's interesting to see this huge battle raging in the internet world and to watch how angry people get about it.  I can sort of see both sides of the argument:  Being paid to post something on a website will just fill the internet with a bunch of paid advertisements disguised as actual posts; but at the same time, most websites are currently filled with contextual ads and mentions of sponsors.  I fail to see the difference.  Whether I disclose payment details or not shouldn't affect my opinion of the payer.  If it does, it's not worth my time. 

This is a sponsored post.