This sucks! LOL

By cynthia on Oct 8, 2009

Ouch…that whole thing hurts my brain. It is supposed to be so long and drawn out so we all just give up?

I don’t really understand the point of all this. So basically if my opinion is positive toward something, and I affiliate link it, then I have to claim it as an advertisement?

What if I say some pros and cons, and the company comes along and gets upset about what is in their advertisement? I would have to change it, or take it down?

I really feel like this is just stepping all over my freedoms…and for what? Protect people too dumb to have their own opinion, while making it harder and harder for my publication to stay afloat?

By Levi Blackman on Oct 9, 2009

Cynthia has a 2 really good points point. Are there cliff notes? I’ve never seen so many annotated statements ever!

I guess it’s time we write our congress again to tell them the FTC is charging us for speach. That and allowing companies more control over content that isn’t theirs.

By Bradley on Oct 9, 2009

I don’t understand it much myself. It seems to be saying that if you use affiliate links in your review or “opinion-based” website, or if a company sends you a complementary product to review that you need to state that as a disclaimer on your blog, because otherwise it may seem “misleading”…their giving you something may influence your opinion, so you have to tell your readers that…something along those lines.

But that’s not very fair either because my reviews would be the same with or without the affiliate link - in fact most of the reviews on my own review website are NOT reimbursed or sponsored for in any way.

By Stephanie on Oct 9, 2009

I am wondering if the FTC will govern the drug company’s claims and endorsments of drugs that are unproven and untested as well.

Will they govern themselves as much as they are trying to stop advertisers for small businesses. I only use endorsments in my articles that I have used myself.

What are they trying to do -kill e-commerce and if so, do TV and newspaper commercial ads comply with all in this report?

Drug company’s make unsubstantiated claims all the time and get away with it, lets see if they go after the big corporations. Not.

By Teriss on Oct 9, 2009

I work in medicine primarily. I am bombarded with reps of drug companies who want to influence my prescribing practices. My rule has been to see them only once a month and to only accept samples of products that I will use.

On my blog, I have always told readers that if they clicked on this link and purchased the book or product, I received renumeration as a result. It isn’t an infringement of you freedom of speech - you are free to state any opinion you wish, you just have to say that you are being paid for that opinion if indeed you would be if your reader bought the product about which you are expressing an opinion. You are liable if your expressed opinion and statements are false or can not be substantiated.

By Bruce on Oct 10, 2009

Hope Share A Sale can extract some important points in a simple layout for our reading and understanding.

Thanks!

By Jason on Oct 11, 2009

Overstepping - this is what it is. They can’t even come up with fair and reasonable guidelines!

By Cheap Soma on Oct 13, 2009

I dont think there is going to be any good reason why i should change my mind on a review. Frankly almost all the people will write something good about a product or a company if they are promoting it. Well thats the fact. The bad they will just not say… its not lying its just marketing! I am not sure anything is going to change my view as long as the product i am promoting is going to make money and i dont think there are a lot of bad products which can make money after all… Acai berry for one is for idiots to promote, but samsung LCD TV… i think thats my kind of product

By Business REview on Oct 14, 2009

A little hard to understand, maybe. But this may only be the case since it seems like the first 50 pages are discussion *about* the revisions and then they actually get down to describing the updates that have been made (section III).

At first glance, it doesn’t appear as though much has changed - just a way of applying the same guidelines that have been around for decades to new media.

All in all, good stuff to know! thanks for ensuring we were aware of the guidelines.

~Krismom

By Krismom on Oct 15, 2009

P.S. what is with the multiple posts from salahuddin?? they are just “copy and pastes” of previous comments above!!

I’m concerned maybe thi is a new way of spamming blogs to try to get past the anti-spam securities in place? I hope they don’t become a common occurrence in the blogosphere!

They may need a manual delete.

By Krismom on Oct 15, 2009

Hello
According to me this will be more secure and as you said honest bloggers don’t have to worry about it.I agree that this is a new way.Thank you very much for sharing this with us.

By vitamines     on Oct 24, 2009

I don’t think that anyone will keep in mind these guidelines when posting false produce review.
But this is a good initiative. Some sort of enforcement measures will be required to stop or reduce false product reviews.

By Online Typing Jobs on Oct 27, 2009

I can see one area where this would be a good thing. Maybe it will shut down all those phony MLM scams that are constantly showing up. Those are the people that need this kind of regulation.

By Bob on Nov 2, 2009

Nice Post! Obviously one has to follow the guidelines. I find few of the guidelines can be limited. I like Honest Bloggers don’t have to worry about it. Thats right!

By Yuvaraj on Nov 4, 2009

I for one am glad that I am South African (3rd world). The FTC’s regulations are not enforceable in my country and my government just learnt how
to attach documents to emails

Anyway, I am an honest marketer. I can’t wait to see some movie star telling us about a new product they are endorsing and then stating that they are paid $1.5million to say they love it.

I work in the medical field too, the drug cigarette and alcohol companies will not be touched.
P.S. “Smoking causes lung cancer” regulation did not work as well as they hoped. So I think we should comply and complain if we don’t like the results, which I don’t think will be so bad.

By Thoriso on Nov 6, 2009

Personally i think this is stupid because Bloggers from india, china or any other country apart from the US will not abide by it and the US can do nothing about it. They rather leave this law in the bin and help the Home business guys to earn some money by dumping it. As such people in US are losing jobs, its high time they realize this and accommodate their law accordingly

By Rajeev on Nov 10, 2009

Quite frankly I can’t see what the big deal is. If you have a disclosure page that simply tells people that you make money when they buy something from your site or that you get products for free or not. Or what the circumstances are around your review then what is the problem?
I have a disclosure page on mys site that spells it all out.
Trust with your site visitors is an important part of the presell.

By Beverly on Nov 11, 2009

I just want to know when a GUIDELINE became a LAW.

By Doug on Nov 18, 2009

I do understand the general idea of trying to protect the public but why not just create a FTC or other non-bias website which just logs customer complaints. Guess, I am just use to doing my homework.

By Doug on Nov 18, 2009

I don’t think this should bother any honest marketers. Just like Google’s recent crack down on spam sites using Adwords, if your not spamming, there’s no problem.

By Free Guitar Lessons on Nov 26, 2009

Just give it to me in Layman’s Terms. No sense in adding a whole bunch of filler. Just get right to the point. I read it, I get it somewhat. I’m not going to loose sleep over it!

By Shannon on Nov 29, 2009

It is much harder for bloggers like me. Anyway, it is only valid in USA

By Tinh on Nov 30, 2009

The FTC Guidelines and Law is sufficient at reining in wild claims and co-sponsored fraudulent endorsement’s. As will assigns attempt to waive off any liabilities with disclaimers in general. When misrepresentations are made, consistent with all forms of published media, simply attempting to disclaim responsibility of such claims will not dissolve liability of fraud anyway. Product complaint[s] data is not settled by affiliates nor non-consumers. Only publishing transfer rights are generally granted. Which may be confusing to those who wish to make fraudulent claims.

By Edward Gordon II on Dec 6, 2009

I have no problems in complying with FTC.

However, it only angers me when I see celebrities pushing products without telling us how much a company is paying them for product promotion. FTC should go after them also. What is good for the commoners is good for the celebrities.

By Marie on Dec 8, 2009

Well, That was to be Expected. (Shrugs)

By Michael Marshall on Dec 28, 2009

I have no issues with complying and I think anything that protects us as consumers, is great!

By BeltwayBoy on Jan 9, 2010

I think this FTC Regulation on testimonials,blogging, product reviews and such is a good idea, however I think it needs some work and more simple information about it, In my opinion what happened to the right of free speech? Bill of Rights? the concept of word of mouth?

More people will be cautious about blogging, posting a product review unless they had a disclaimer on there site and on every product review and blog, which i think is the best way to legally bypass this FTC Regulation and to prevent any possible problems.

But then again What if you actually reviewed a product that you actually used yourself and it did great for you, but someone else simply said suspicious stuff about it? and someone tried it and didn’t work well? There would be a major problem here, what defines a legal good review? And how will the FTC be monitoring such content?

By Jason Constans on Jan 20, 2010

I think the folks who continue pushing get rich scams and their followers are the ones who should start worrying. Just my 2 cents worth.
Paul

By Paul on Jan 20, 2010

What I am now seeing is that things are now happening behind the scenes. Affiliate links gone, but recommendations and normal links remain. Obviously a kickback involved.

Website a suggests website b for review info of a product on site c, the product review links to the product, with a direct link, no affiliate type link in site.

Maybe, to, we are seeing businesses taking over web sites to have ‘review links’ favoring them.

So the fda has pushed the more unscrupulous underground, while the better guys are playing by the rules. So they have improved it, in that the better ones are playing by the rules.

All we can do is report the unscrupluos ones, and hope that the FDA sees the pattern in things.

By Hemroids are a pain in the proverbial on Feb 10, 2010

Spam my butt. The true definition is something the other guy is doing that you are not, so you call it spam. The most misused, catch all phrase on the net. The FTC sucks and are just another bloated out of touch over funded bunch of lazy government employees trying to deprive you of your constitutional right.

By POed on Mar 2, 2010

Thanks for the information. Clearly, some marketers were getting out of hand with lots of undisclosed paid testimonials and just downright fake testimonials. I’m not quite sure that similar guidelines are enforced for all of the late night infomercials, but they should be.

By Beginner Cycling on Mar 5, 2010