I think disclosures are important in making your readers feel they have not been tricked, or taken advantage of, especially in blogs about making money.

Using a pseudonym may be ok but not when they disclose nothing else about their background and affiliations. I know of at least one example where a blogger has a major conflict of interest but has never disclosed it. Makes me see red!

Admittedly, it’s a rather muddy statement because this is a muddy topic. If you say we’re journalists, then maybe we should disclose every conflict of interest. But even then, does every newspaper and magazine music reviewer say they got the CD for free? Or that they never pay for concerts? Of course not. Does every movie reviewer say they didn’t have to pay to see the flick? Of course not. And let’s not even talk about fashion and celebrity tabloids, whose “journalists” would laugh until their sides split if told they would have to disclose every relationship every time they write about something.

I tend to think of bloggers as opinion page writers and we should be opinionated. Howard Stern plugs his advertisers, musicians plug their sponsors, athletes plug their shoe contract guys. We’re influencers and that’s business. If your idealistic world is more black and white, don’t read my blog. I’m okay with that.

If you believe a sponsorship, a network-affiliation, employment ties or friendship if known would cause your readers to question their trust in your writing, then disclose it.

On the other hand, don’t go bananas and disclose every minute detail of your life in the thought you are being ‘transparent.’ Some windows are better left with a shade.

Must bloggers have some disclosure? No. Disclosure is only necessary if you need your readers trust in what you write.

I disclose, not per post, but my disclosure is linked in my sidebar, and on individual entry pages.
But it’s a simple disclosure. I may be getting paid to write reviews of some products or services, or reviews of products.

I never disclose how much I make for posts, I never discuss a monthly total of my earnings etc.
I personally find talking about how much you earn every month, to be extremely tacky.
I know a lot of bloggers who do it, and as soon as I see a post that says here’s my earnings for July (ie) I close their blog.
I don’t want to know how much they got paid, and I don’t think others want to know either.
To me, it’s like taking a picture of your paycheck and posting it saying see? see how much money I make? I’m awesome.
Tacky.

There’s been a recent string of scandals regarding “corporate controlled” blogs where the blogger pretended to be independent and never disclosed that he/she was actually being well compensated by a company to write the posts. I think Wal-Mart got caught doing this.

I made it a point early on to disclose as much as possible. If I get information from another article or blog post, I’ll put a link to that article/blog post so people can read my source for themselves and know I didn’t copy it or anything.

The only information I don’t disclose is the number of hits my blog receives and how much I earn from Adsense (not very much). There’s really no reason for my readers to know this. And I think disclosing anything about Adsense is against their terms anyway. But I want people to visit my blog because they like my content and I give them something new, not because I receive so many hits each day.