If you’re interested in hearing some of the most twisted, blubber-filled blather explaining and defending PayPerPost, the service that pays bloggers to write positive posts for advertisers with questionable disclosure, you’ll love this interview Jason Calacanis did with PayPerPost CEO Ted Murphy. To hear Murphy say he has no problem reading a blog that contains paid posts that aren’t disclosed as such and try to attach some kind of logic to it is one of the saddest moments in marketing history. PayPerPost has been a laughable business model from its start and to hear Murphy try to justify it is just painful and offensive. It’s an affront to what limited credibility marketing still has in the eyes of people. Lines are already blurred enough and Murphy, it seems, wants lines to disappear completely.
Murphy then goes on to categorize bloggers as people who do not have to adhere to ethics. Nothing like calling your customers idiots while using them to make money. Reacting to Calacanis noting disclosure in Google AdSense ads, Murphy tries to make the point PayPerPost posts are content and are somehow different from paid ads even though the PayPerPosts posts are paid.
The overarching problem with Murphy’s defense of his business model is that he assume people who reads blogs are just as savvy about marketing are marketers themselves. He assumes people understand all the details of marketing and can easily discern between paid and unpaid content on the web.
PayPerPost, in our opinion is, by far, the worst, most deceptive form on online advertising today. It’s worse than pop ups. It’s worse than in-text advertising. It’s worse than flogs. It’s worse than spam. Like the separation of church and state, there must be a separation between content and advertising. Payperpost ignores this and that causes great harm to an already greatly distrusted industry. Stop. Just please stop.
