This policy is valid from 15 July 2010.

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact me, Debra Lynn Dadd, via Contact Debra.

I personally do not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. I have no knowledge of or control over what others may or may not accept in return for posting questions or comments on my blog. To the best of my knowledge, businesses who post identify themselves as such. It is in their best interest to do so for promotion.

I do accept payment from those businesses mentioned which have “premium listings” on the portion of my blog called Debra’s List. Payment for premium listings is accepted only from businesses who meet my criteria for Debra’s List and allows the business to call more attention to their listing by adding their logo. I also allow these businesses to participate in influencing the content of their listing, but only by telling me what is most important to them to emphasize about their business. In the end, all listings are written by me at my own discretion. These premium listings can be clearly identified on Debra’s List  by their logos or other graphic on their listing, however, they are not identified as such elsewhere. Readers of this blog who wish to know if a business has a premium listing may find that listing on Debra’s List for that information.

I also accept payment for classified advertising in my weekly newsletter from some of the businesses listed on Debra’s List and mentioned elsewhere. These are not indicated because the classified ads are temporary from week to week.

I do accept and keep free sample products from businesses who wish me to know more about their products. However, accepting these products does not influence my decision to mention the business on this blog by virtue of being a gift. They do influence my decision in the realm of inspecting the product in order to qualify for my stated criteria.

This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. I believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. I do not accept paid or sponsored content that I am aware of. Again, I have no way of knowing if anyone submitting content to me in the form of a question or comment has been paid or not. I operate this blog in good faith that the opinions and experiences expressed are those of the submitter, and are not paid content.

As the owner of this blog, I am not being compensated by any individual or business to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own, and, as stated above, I assume the views and opinions of others who contribute are purely their own.  I only mention products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of my endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

I do receive monetary commissions from some of the websites listed on this blog via affiliate programs or other similar agreements. These businesses are always identified with an “affiliate” tag  on Debra’s List, but they are not noted elsewhere.

It is my personal opinion that honesty is best measured and trust built by the integrity of recommendations. I make my choices for recommendations based on stated criteria, not compensation. I accept compensation in limited forms in order to cover the expenses of doing business. However, I wish to state that this compensation happens after I choose to recommend a business and not before. Were I to choose to recommend a business based on compensation and not criteria, my recommendations would be worthless.

 This is true. Debra Lynn Dadd