Disclosure of Compensated Relationships

The US Government Federal Trade Commission has rules requiring the disclosure of any compensated relationship (employment, for pay, or in return for free/discounted products and/or services) that an author has when they review/evaluate/recommend a product or service.

OSM has made it clear that the Joomla! websites fall under these new FTC rules, and OSM is working with us to develop a Terms of Service statement that will support these new rules. Ken Crowder and Peter Martin recently drafted the following compliance statement for the Joomla! Forum website. It is again presented here unedited, but I think it's a good basis that can be generalized to apply to our magazine content:

"When recommending an extension or other product to help a user solve their issue, you must disclose any affiliations you may have with the company or group that authors that particular product. This includes, but is not limited to: any paid or non-paid relationships past or present, receiving any promotional products or services, or any other similar information."

Joomla! Leadership / OSM oversight / Copyright

The Joomla! Project and OSM reserve the right to remove any content at any time without notice. The magazine's content falls under the direct oversight of the Outreach Department. As a manner of general practice, OSM does not get involved in content except worrying about things like the FTC issue. libel and the copyright. The OSM site has a copyright policy for all "other" content (not on specific sites that have other rules). Magazine authors keep their copyright but the Joomla! Project and OSM also have the right to reuse the work. If someone does not want to give the Joomla! Project and OSM that right, it should be discussed with OSM.