Let me be the first to state that we at Tech Confidential have not received a wicked cool laptop from Microsoft and AMD. Nor do we accept any compensation other than our salaries paid by The Deal. This saddens us. Imagine the world of electronic gadgets or other shiny objects we could snag if only our pesky ethics and possibly our site's lack of appropriate eyeballs didn't hold us back.

But apparently several other bloggers did receive free laptops sent by Microsoft's PR firm, Edelman, and not all disclosed it. This saddens us. Many of our stories come from bloggers who may or may not have received laptops. At more than $2,000 the laptops have the potential to influence the coverage of those bloggers. But we may never know. Even if those bloggers do disclose it, will they disclose the gift each time they write about Microsoft or AMD, much like the requirement that journalists disclose their company's ownership when writing about those same owners? If not, how would you know unless you read the original post that disclosed the gift? If the blogger accepts that laptop and perhaps other freebies from different companies, would a disclosure be appended to each company, similar to a stock ticker? That could become unwieldy pretty quickly.

Much has been made of the power citizen journalism has and the ability to get unfiltered news via the blogosphere. However at any reputable news publication the news is unfiltered in one way that might differ from these bloggers. At a reputable newspaper a corporation has no opportunity to filter news by offering a fancy gift. — Stacey Higginbotham