The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) on Thursday introduced the WOMMA Ethics Adoption Toolkit, a collaborative ethics document library to help companies make a formal commitment to ethics in word of mouth marketing - and avoid stealth word-of-mouth tactics and vendors.

Dell announced that it will be the first to support WOMMA's latest initiative, which offers companies a toolkit to help them create their own official policies in support of the WOMMA Ethics Code - and share them with employees, vendors and consumers - to ensure their word of mouth marketing efforts are ethically sound.

The Ethics Adoption Toolkit includes sample letters, contracts, press releases, and other documents, which are customizable and can be modified to suit company needs and priorities.

Dell today announced a comprehensive online dialogue policy for its employees and representatives, using WOMMA's toolkit to validate that its guidelines would help ensure accuracy and transparency of its blogging program.

"These are the tools you need to make ethics real inside your company," said WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz, referring to what is the third tool in WOMMA's new Practical Ethics program, intended to give companies the tools needed to prevent unethical practices before they start.

The other elements of the program are the Ethics Assessment Tool, which helps companies identify unethical practices, and the Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines, which helps companies train their staff on how to work appropriately in the blogosphere.

"Our new policy extends Dell's Code of Conduct to online communication channels and prescribes a higher standard for Dell employees, suppliers and other company representatives," said John Hamlin, SVP of Dell's global online business and global brand marketing. "The WOMMA code of ethics provided an excellent baseline for our new policy."

The Ethics Adoption Toolkit is based on work by WOMMA Ethics Council cochair Gary Spangler of DuPont, which was the first company to make a formal, comprehensive commitment to the WOMMA ethics program.