LLsocial.com reports on Pinterest doing something that is fundamentally very smart … while simultaneously doing something very stupid.

Smart: They’re rewriting URLs that Pinterest users are posting to the service so that those URLs are affiliated links that will generate income for Pinterest.

Stupid: They don’t disclose this on their site.

Did Pinterest blow it? Is it no big deal? There’s lots of discussion on both sides of the issue over at that LLsocial link. My $.02 is that they blew it by not revealing this from the get-go, but that it’s not a deal-breaker, mainly because the Pinterest community will forgive them. They’ll apologize, revise their disclosure, and their audience will continue to post pins and boards by the bazillions.

However, it does put Pinterest on a kind of double-secret probation. A lot more people will be paying far closer attention to them than might otherwise have been the case. Another misstep or two, and they could have some real trouble on their hands.

Takeaway for marketers: Transparency matters.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways, Social Media.