Offerpal Releases New Policies To Quell Critics

Offerpal is one of the primary targets of the recent complaints about aggressive offers on the social web. However following those criticisms, the company brought in a new CEO, and today is releasing a new set of advertising policies which holds the company “to the highest standard of ethics and corporate responsibility.” If you want the full details of the advertising policies, you can read them here. The advertising policies are relatively clear, however the “gray” areas which generate a large portion of revenue for many publishers, still exists.

It’s somewhat surprising to hear that the company will still enable publishers to accept “gray” area offers, rather than just exclude them completely, something which a number of companies including Zynga have decided to do. For the industry leaders to publicly denounce aggressive advertising policies would make a lot of sense, and while many of them have done so on their own, there is still a competitive advantage to those who provide “gray” area offers.

For example, included in Offerpal’s latest advertising policies is a section related to “free” offers. It’s well known that free offers frequently require cancellation in a specific period, otherwise the user will be charged a fee. As such, Offerpal’s policies state:

If a purchase will be required by the consumer to receive the reward item, then the disclosure within close proximity of the word “free” (or similar terms) must be in the same color, font, and size of the word “free” (or similar terms) and it should educate the consumer about the purchase requirement(s).

I wonder why they don’t just remove the gray area all together, however that may be a lot to ask for an industry which has always been straddling the line. This is no doubt a step in the right direction, and Offerpal is clearly looking to clean up their image after the controversy which erupted over the past few weeks. These updated advertising terms also adhere to all the other regulations set forth by industry commissions as well as the terms provided by social platforms including Facebook.

The industry as a whole is moving forward in the right direction and the faster that dirty offers are removed from the system, the quicker that the businesses can be considered sustainable. It’s great to see Offerpal (who’s also a sponsor of ours) moving forward in the right direction.

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