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