Disclosure Best Practices Checklist 1: Disclosure of Identity

Focus: Best practices for how employees and agencies acting as official corporate representatives disclose their identity to bloggers and on blogs.

When communicating with blogs or bloggers on behalf of my company or on topics related to the business of my company, I will:

1. Disclose who I am, who I work for, and any other relevant affiliations from the very first encounter.
2. Disclose any business/client relationship if I am communicating on behalf of a third party.
3. Provide a means of communicating with me.
4. Comply with all laws and regulations regarding disclosure of identity.
5. We will inform employees, agencies, and advocates that we have a formal relationship of these disclosure policies and take action quickly to correct problems where possible.
6. Pseudonyms:
   (Option A) Never use a false or obscured identity or pseudonym.
   (Option B) If aliases or role accounts are used for employee privacy, security, or other business reasons, these identities will clearly indicate the organization I represent and provide means for two-way communications with that alias.
7. “We Didn’t Know”
   Clearly disclose our involvement on all blogs produced by the company or our agencies.