My FTC Disclosure, and have you done yours yet?

With the US Federal Trade Commission now forcing bloggers to disclose anything that may have any influence over what they are writing, many are now offering their FTC disclosure upfront.

Mark Rizzn Hopkins (disclosure, Mark occasionally writes a post here) and Mark Cuban are two disclosures I’ve just read. Although I’m not American, this site now lives on the Rackspace Cloud in possibly multiple data centers in the United States so may be exposed to US law, so just to be on the safe side, here’s mine.

Mineral Sands

My wife, as a former employee of Iluka Resources still has a number of shares in the company. Those shares were given to employees partially for free. Although those shares aren’t in my name, I may be influenced by her having them.

Iluka is the largest producer of zircon in the world, with an approximate market share of 34% and the second largest producer of titanium dioxide minerals with an approximate market share of 18%. Zirconium metal is used in nuclear reactors due to its neutron absorption properties, and many of our readers in the United States get their power from nuclear energy. The more they read, the more Zircon is needed, and the more we profit. Titanium dioxide is used in paint, and I’ve previously encouraged people to paint things on my person blog.

Water

My wife currently works for the main supplier of water where we live (name not disclosed for privacy reasons.) I drink piles of the stuff every day as I write this site, although we don’t get a subsidy for it. However, I recently attended an open day at a reservoir where I was given two sausage sandwiches. Not only where they delicious, they were free. If I advocate drinking water, there may be a direct and indirect influence ?