Circumlocutions

hile perus­ing the twit­ter­stream yes­ter­day, @ProfJonathon shared a link to a new web ser­vice named CMP​.ly. Accord­ing to the web­site, it pur­ports to be a “dis­clo­sure engine” for every­one online — from blog­gers to Agen­cies.
   My first ques­tion to ProfJonathon was whether it was rec­og­nized by the FTC. Since he was merely shar­ing a link and was in no way asso­ci­ated with the ser­vice, we agreed that it was an inter­est­ing intel­lec­tual exer­cise and we each went our sep­a­rate ways. Then, I got a response from @cmply:

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@ProfJonathan @mglickman — Good ques­tion. Although the FTC can­not endorse a par­tic­u­lar solu­tion we met and reviewed our sys­tem. DM for info.

   Nat­u­rally, I DM’d (DMed?) the @cmply account, offer­ing my email address. The response I received, not 2 hours later, was infor­ma­tive and com­pre­hen­sive from Tom Cher­naik, the prin­ci­pal of CMP.ly’s par­ent — Dig­Comm. Tom described how Dig­Comm involved the FTC in the design of the CMP​.ly ser­vice, so that — when imple­mented prop­erly — it meets and exceeds the FTC’s new guide­lines. He also invited fur­ther ques­tions and discussion.

   I have noth­ing to do with Dig­Comm or CMP​.ly. I don’t even con­sider myself enough of a blog­ger to make use of a dis­clo­sure engine such as CMP​.ly. If I were look­ing for an answer to dis­clo­sure require­ments, how­ever, the respon­sive­ness and open­ness of those in charge of CMP​.ly would def­i­nitely put my mind at ease.