The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently released a report regarding new guidelines surrounding paid sponsorships and product reviews, recommendations and blogging.
The full report can be viewed here: http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005endorsementguidesfnnotice.pdf
It is important that all affiliates and merchants read this report and determine what, if any, action needs to be taken in order to comply. The report states that the rules become active on December 1st of 2009.
Mediums such as Twitter, Facebook and other social sites are included… so it is important to fully read and understand the report. The FTC has said themselves that they aren’t going to be fining people for lack of disclosure … but are really instead trying to guide bloggers and marketers in the direction of ethical business practices. If you aren’t trying to deceive customers – it is unlikely that you’ll be affected by this.
In my opinion, bottom line, honest bloggers and affiliate marketers don’t have much to worry about here.
UPDATE: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/jennifer-vilaga/slipstream/ftc-bloggers-its-not-medium-its-message-0
MORE GREAT STUFF: http://affiliate.madhatterconsulting.com/news-just-for-affiliates/fourth-quarter-woes-ftc-releases-updated-regulations-for-bloggers/
cynthia says
October 8, 2009 at 10:56 amThis sucks! LOL
Levi Blackman says
October 9, 2009 at 10:30 amOuch…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?
Bradley says
October 9, 2009 at 3:36 pmCynthia 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.
Brian Littleton says
October 9, 2009 at 3:42 pmHere is a great interview / update which should calm some fears regarding the fines.
I think honest bloggers with honest intentions have very little to worry about here.
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/jennifer-vilaga/slipstream/ftc-bloggers-its-not-medium-its-message-0
Stephanie says
October 9, 2009 at 3:45 pmI 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.
Teriss says
October 9, 2009 at 5:18 pmI 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.
Bruce says
October 10, 2009 at 6:00 amI 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.
Jason says
October 11, 2009 at 3:22 amHope Share A Sale can extract some important points in a simple layout for our reading and understanding.
Thanks!
Cheap Soma says
October 13, 2009 at 11:57 amOverstepping – this is what it is. They can’t even come up with fair and reasonable guidelines!
Business REview says
October 14, 2009 at 12:42 pmI 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
Krismom says
October 15, 2009 at 1:37 pmA 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
Krismom says
October 15, 2009 at 1:41 pmP.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.
vitamines says
October 24, 2009 at 2:11 amHello
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.
Online Typing Jobs says
October 27, 2009 at 3:12 amI 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.
Bob says
November 2, 2009 at 12:46 pmI 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.
Yuvaraj says
November 4, 2009 at 4:30 amNice 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!
Thoriso says
November 6, 2009 at 11:42 pmI 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.
Rajeev says
November 10, 2009 at 8:27 amPersonally 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
Beverly says
November 11, 2009 at 10:41 pmQuite 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.
Doug says
November 18, 2009 at 8:18 amI just want to know when a GUIDELINE became a LAW.
Brian Littleton says
November 18, 2009 at 3:19 pmDoug,
I agree with you and it is important for everyone to realize that these are guidelines set by the FTC … not necessarily laws that have immediate penalties.
The FTC has already stated (clarified) that the first action would likely be a communication/warning that what a blogger was doing was misleading… and how to correct it. To even get to that point it would require consumer complaint.
If you are a blogger with honest intentions, I don’t think this guideline will do anything but improve the industry in general… but it is still something that is important and good to be aware of.
Doug says
November 18, 2009 at 3:43 pmI 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.
Free Guitar Lessons says
November 26, 2009 at 3:02 amI 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.
Shannon says
November 29, 2009 at 9:23 pmJust 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!
Tinh says
November 30, 2009 at 12:43 amIt is much harder for bloggers like me. Anyway, it is only valid in USA
Edward Gordon II says
December 6, 2009 at 7:58 pmThe 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.
Marie says
December 8, 2009 at 6:02 amI 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.
Michael Marshall says
December 28, 2009 at 2:24 pmWell, That was to be Expected. (Shrugs)
BeltwayBoy says
January 9, 2010 at 8:46 pmI have no issues with complying and I think anything that protects us as consumers, is great!
Jason Constans says
January 20, 2010 at 6:43 pmI 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?
Paul says
January 20, 2010 at 8:58 pmI 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
Hemroids are a pain in the proverbial says
February 10, 2010 at 6:33 pmWhat 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.
POed says
March 2, 2010 at 10:41 amSpam 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.
Beginner Cycling says
March 5, 2010 at 10:20 pmThanks 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.
Dave says
March 20, 2010 at 7:38 amI’m not that bothered with the ruling, but with Phishers/hackers/virus writers/malware writers out there going completely untouched you’d think big brother usa would get their priorities right!!
Baylane Promotions says
March 26, 2010 at 1:52 pmWe have never used blogs for our marketing but was once thinking about it. After reading some of the posts here I am not quite sure if it is worth it and I myself never did like blogs but was only interested because the search engines love them so much.
Freebie Mom says
April 23, 2010 at 10:05 pmWhat I see is that if we at least have a disclaimer and we’re honest somewhere on our sites, then we’re in compliance. Everyone wants and needs a great review nowadays.
Blogger Pro says
April 23, 2010 at 10:06 pmAs long as we write wonderful reviews, displaying a disclaimer won’t really be a problem. It will all be worth it in the end. The business will come and come again.
Rich says
April 23, 2010 at 10:09 pmThe FTC is asking for a lot, but I want to write reviews, so my disclaimer is up. No problem. I definitely don’t want any trouble from “The man.” LOL. None of us do, really. Most of us are and have always been on the up-and-up anyway.
About Coffees says
May 7, 2010 at 1:15 pmWhat can the FTC do about sites hosted in other countries?
Sounds like they are just getting their foot in the door to start taking rights away from hard working Americans.
kurttasche says
June 1, 2010 at 3:33 pmSo, we as independent affiliates have to state that we are making a commission for products we review. Yet, celebrities who are paid to endorse products don’t have to say this in the commercials they film?
What’s the difference between myself saying a product is great and the actual producer of the product saying the same thing? Both are marketing propaganda. The FTC is just trying to hold independent affiliates under their thumb.
half price off says
November 13, 2010 at 6:15 pmI think they are trying to crack down on the deceitful product review sites. Honest affiliates need not worry about this regulation. But it would be good to know if there were any recent updates to this regulations.
John says
December 13, 2010 at 2:22 pmI agree, I think that cracking down on deceitful reviews might be a reason. It’s just a shame that people aren’t more honest.
hemroid remedy says
February 9, 2011 at 8:36 pmIt only makes sense to be honest and upfront. Why make trouble for yourself?
Taswir Haider says
June 17, 2013 at 3:51 pmAs long as we write wonderful reviews, displaying a disclaimer would not really be a problem. It will all be worth it in the end. The business will come and come again.