  A sender acquires a signal about an object's quality and commits to a rule to
disclose its realizations to a receiver, who then chooses to buy the object or
to keep an outside option of privately known value. Optimal disclosure rules
typically conceal negative signal realizations when the object's sale is very
profitable to the sender and positive signal realizations when the sale is less
profitable. Using such disclosure rules, the advisor is able to steer sales
from lower- to higher-profitability objects. I show that, despite this
strategic concealment of some signal realizations, the receiver may prefer
being informed by a non-transparent sender, because the sender's hidden motives
produce an additional incentive to invest in acquiring a precise signal of the
object's quality. I use my model to evaluate policies commonly proposed in the
context of financial advisors, such as mandatory disclosure of commissions and
commission caps.
