Why Write a Disclosure?
A while ago the Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C.) decided that if you write a blog and live in America that you need to disclose any financial benefit that you derive from so doing etc. Fair enough.
While I personally feel that people should make their own reasoned decisions, I can also see that the less capable need some protection. I guess this is why coffee cups have signs like “CAUTION: Contents may be HOT!” Does anyone ever go and ask for a cold coffee? Anyway, I digress.
For the record (as they say in all those U.S. crime drama’s) I don’t happen to actually live in America and am not a U.S. citizen, but in the spirit of fair play I will “disclose” anyway.
If you have a burning desire to read the full Federal Trade Commission disclosure document then please do. Mercifully, I do not have to. It is probably a great soporific. Let me know how you get on.
Bureaucracies do love long legal documents that ordinary citizens neither read nor understand. Anyway, this document is my own “not legally trained in any way” attempt to comply in good faith with what I believe to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
(By the way, if using terms like “fair play” doesn’t let you guess what nationality I am, I will tell you at the end so try to stay awake until then!)
Why Computer Chess Online?
I write this blog mostly as a labour of love. Chess is a great game that has certainly stood the test of time. Computers appeal to my “inner nerd.” Mixing these interests seems natural.
Also, I love making websites but only recently learned that writing about stuff you personally dislike is soulless and a bad idea. Getting away from writing purely for cash and writing about something I am personally interested in is why I am putting my energy into this website. From this fact I feel there are a number of things that I need to “disclose“.
Making Money from Writing
This website makes money in several ways. The money that comes in helps to pay for a variety of website related services that ensure that computerchessonline.net remains free to you, that the pages (hopefully) load fast across the world, the site is pleasing to the eye and so on. Hosting a website that has decent traffic costs money as equivalent free services often give a poor user experience.
At time of writing, I am studying for a Psychology degree. This means I am officially a “poor student”. The income from this site ensures its survival. Try paying for hosting, a decent CDN and DNS service as a student and you will soon understand why this website has advertising.
Please turn off those darn Adblockers! 🙂
Advertising on this Website
I make money from this blog primarily via advertising. At the time of writing this, that means Google Adsense, but this may change in the future. I like Adsense as it means individual advertisers have no sway at all in telling me what to write. This means I can be open and honest. This feels like the right thing to do.
Affiliate Links
I should also point out that I use affiliate links from Amazon and perhaps will expand this to other similar offerings at some point in the future. This fact has some implications.
In the past I have made money in Internet Marketing (I.M.) and have seen just how much utter rubbish people will write for the chance of someone clicking that link and the writer thereby making an affiliate commission. I am not that person, although it is probably fair to say that I have been in the past. Sometimes you have to have made the mistakes in order to learn from them.
Going forward I can say this; although affiliate links are used on this site, I will not be adding links to any product I consider to be poor quality, not worth the money, or defective in any way.
Product Reviews and “Freebies”
Any product review you read on this site will be my honest opinion. If a manufacturer makes a product available to me for testing or review, my review will be my honest opinion.
In the event that I feel that a product does not come up to standard in some way, I will inform the manufacturer of that fact before any article is published. I will give them the option to decline publication of the article. Slamming a product is not my usual style. “No drama here, nothing to see, move along…”
My aim in this policy is to be fair to both sides. Customers need accurate information and reviews, but products often take endless hours and hard cash to develop.
If a particular chess product is not reviewed here then it probably means one of a few things:
- I don’t own it and so cannot comment on it.
- The manufacturer hasn’t sent me a copy for review.
- It is rubbish and I will not be making any comment on it at all.
I reserve the right to alter and amend this disclosure at any point in the future should my opinion change – but I doubt it will.
For now, I think this covers all that needs to be said. Hope this was more interesting than the usual “legalese“.
Best wishes to all.
Dave.
P.S. For those that read this far just to find out what nationality I am. I am a Brit.