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Policies

Privacy, advertising, email issues, etc. Look, I feel like there is an ethical way to do this stuff. The world should not be separated into fake blogs that build SEO keyword posts to sell ads and legit blogs that NEVER advertise. Hopefully I got it right. If not, tell me and I'll fix it.

Email



I'd like you to sign up for my email list and receive my blog posts. At some point I will send you a link, like when I publish my next book. That's it. I will never sell or give this list to advertisers. I will not spam you with updates or a newsletter. I will, if that is in the future create a "Spammy Email Newsletter" list you can sign up for.

Ads


I just started with Google AdSense. I am exploring this as a way to test out how it works, really, as I just don't imagine I am going to generate a lot of clicks with my content. But, as a social media consultant, I have to explore things from time to time.

In this case, the dominant advice from bloggers over the past five years or so has been that they are leaving AdSense because they don't like the kinds of ads that show up. They are also concerned that ads, when people do click on them, drive people off your blog, which disrupts your purpose and branding. Well, we shall see.

Anyway, don't click anything you don't want to click!

Affiliate Links


Amazon links on this site are affiliate links, which gives me microscopic compensation if you click through to Amazon and buy something, anything, not even the linked-to product, during that session. I've been writing this blog for 2 years and 11 months. I have never sold an ad on this blog the entire time up until recently. I just found out about the affiliate linking program last month. When I signed up I went back and made all the existing links to Amazon pages, like in the "Zombie Guide to Meetings" post, affiliate links. I had already been linking to Amazon anyway, and when you read the post, you can see that I am not mendaciously abusing the privilege.

In fact, most of the time, when I link to a book source, I try to link to the fulltext somewhere, like on Google Books, and not an Amazon link, so that you might be able to read the source for free if you are curious. Of course every post where I talk about my book has an affiliate link to my book, but, um, I am obviously trying to sell you my book, the best public speaking textbook ever written (including, you, Cicero!), so this additional level of commercialization of an already nakedly commercial request seems just fine to me.

The most egregious place where you can see me using these links is in the "Podcast Startup" post, where I am reviewing products. But I buy only so many products, so these kinds of posts will be rare. In fact, that is likely to be the only one.

But just in case you are looking for evidence of my Scrooge-like love of cash and swimming through my mountains of stashed Ron Swanson gold, here are a few affiliate links for completely useless items you should not click on or buy (although the reviews tend to be hilarious):

Additional Privacy Policy Stuff


This blog does not share personal information with third parties nor do we store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies.
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We are not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission.
This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on March 23, 2017. If you have any questions feel free to contact me directly here: svrooman@gmail.com