PayPerPost, a marketplace for advertisers to pay bloggers to write about their products, will make a significant policy change on Monday: Bloggers will now be required to disclose that they are being paid for their posts. This looks to be at least partially due to recent moves by the FTC to force word-of-mouth advertisers to disclose any financial incentives to promote products: “FTC” is mentioned five times in the press release that will be issued on Monday (a copy of the press release is below).

This isn’t a perfect fix for PayPerPost – advertisers can still require a positive post about their products, and the disclosure does not have to be within the post itself. The blogger can choose to “prominently” display an accurate disclosure policy on the site in lieu of disclosure within the post itself, although the disclosure policy being recommended by PayPerPost states that paid posts is the same as any advertising on a site. Still, it is a big move in the right direction.

In many ways this move reminds me of Plaxo’s decision to stop spamming non-customers after a barrage of criticism. In this case, the move seems to stem more from the threat of government regulation. Regardless, we applaud the change.