Dave Taylor Unfairly Labels WordPress “Blog Police”

I am one of the biggest fans of Dave Taylor and I always listen when he speaks because it is usually brilliant information and something that I usually  implement into my own blogging practices.  With that said I now have to cry foul!  Dave recently posted about a blogger named Colleen that was warned by WordPress.com by mail that she was violating their terms of service.  Now he is calling WordPress.com and Matt Mullenweg out for their actions and asking whether he missed "the memo that said WordPress was promoted to blog police?"

No Dave, the memo you refer to missing is spelled out in the WordPress.com terms of service, something that you vehemently preach in each of your discussions of Google’s Adsense and Adword programs.  You are very good at making sure each of your presentations has a warning of paying attention to Google’s terms of service, because it is Google’s law.  WordPress’ terms of service seem very clear to me and are spelled out in a very direct fashion, and I’ll start with their indication of "The Gist" of their TOS:

Our basic service is free, and we plan to offer paid upgrades for advanced features such as domain hosting and extra storage. Our service is designed to give you as much control and ownership over what goes on your blog as possible and encourage you to express yourself freely. However, be responsible in what you blog. In particular, make sure that none of the prohibited items listed below appear on your blog or get linked to from your blog (things like spam, viruses, hate content, etc). Please make sure you read through the list and the rest of the terms and agree with them before you get started.

In reference to the notice received by the blogger, you make a good point that 12 hours seems like a unreasonable notice of a violation, and I would also stand behind you to advocate that WordPress.com change the notice of violation provision:

Automattic [Wordpress.com] may also from time to time change its policies on offering commercial content or displaying advertising, and it may do this without notice. (emphasis added)

Although you and I may stand on the side of fairness, we both are unwarranted in our plea.

I should note that in their Responsibility of Contributors section, a subtopic of the agreement which is also in highlighted text, asks that the contributor warrant that [agree to]:

the Content is not spam, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing); (emphasis added)

Although I cannot completely agree to the statement as printed, it is clear that they do not want a blogger to commercialize their blogs for the benefits of companies or in the case you speak of, advertisers, and more particularly, using PayPerPost.com.  I think your common sense question of "(Unwanted? According to whom??)" is very easy to answer–according to WordPress.com.  This is of course a very literal and hyper-technical reading of the terms, but I’m sure it would be used in any brief in support of their position.

Finally, paragraph 2 goes on to empower WordPress.com to:

(ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in Automattic’s sole discretion.

I would also add that "any individual or entity" would also describe the blog contributor, and unfortunately in this case, Colleen herself.  What you consider and argue "arbitrarily dropping the axe" may seem arbitrary, but is without merit.  Colleen has agreed to all of the above before she ever wrote a word.

Your examples of a fast food chain post, an affiliate link and the rest is all a red herring.  WordPress.com has the power and ability to, in your words:

WordPress now deems that bloggers cannot earn money from blog entries on their sites. Period. No question, and if you ask, you’ll be given the boot with just a few hours warning, if any.

The next point of your post is excellent advice to any business, and advice I always give to each of my clients.  I  advocate having  power over your own site.  Don’t ever give another company power over your blog.  Hosting with WordPress.com and others is a problem in that regard.  If a business cannot afford to host their own site, then they are probably not long for the business world.

I did acknowledge your link to Robert Scoble’s post about the issue and I agree with Robert in part about WordPress.com protecting its reputation, but I also asked myself the same thing after seeing Robert’s WordPress.com hosted site with your statement:

Robert has Amazon affiliate links on his page to monetize his blog traffic, and that’s apparently not any sort of problem.

Then of course, my legal mind went back to that question you asked of monetizing being "unwanted" by whom?  Apparently, WordPress.com in its own discretion believes that Robert’s affiliate link is appropriate, and the PayPerPost.com business model is inappropriate.  Is this far to PayPerPost.com?  It’s not about fairness would be my answer, it’s about WordPress.com’s ability to do what ever they feel is in the interest of WordPress.com.  Is it the proper thing?  I would advise Matt against continuing the practice strictly from a public relations point of view. 

I trumpet your advice not to recommend any company using  WordPress.com for their company blog.  I should admit I have recommended that people that want to practice blogging use the WordPress.com service.

Calling WordPress and Matt Mullenweg blog policemen as if to infer that they are the SS of the blogosphere is over the top even for your well stated opinion.  Are you willing to stand behind that statement by labeling Google with that same moniker? If not, perhaps WordPress.com is owed an apology.  If you are willing to make that statement on your blog, I will in advance apologize to you.  Of course, if you did disparage Google, you might be jeopardizing your Google account by arbitrarily violating their TOS.  Shall we test those waters?

Tags: WordPress.com, Dave Taylor, PayPerPost.com, Robert Scoble, Matt Mullenweg, Google, Google Adsense, Google Adwords

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