The Federal Trade Commission is set to become the Federal Opinion Commission. Its tentacles now reach to bloggers and tweeters who receive anything of value and then write about it.
The new rules reach far into the realm of “word-of-mouth” advertising.
The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.
So if you are an employee of Google with a food and wine blog and suggest that your readers use Google Earth to check out the topography of Bourdeau, are you in violation? (Maybe) If you review a book that was given to you, must you disclose the gift? (Yes)
If you review concerts and get a free ticket, do you have to note that in your review? Or does that depend on whether you like the performance?
Is all of this sufficiently ambiguous for you? Bloggers take note. That 30-day free trial you received on your latest widget – you know, the one that comes with its trademark displayed? You might want to tell everyone about that just to be safe.
A fine of $11,000 awaits those of you who get this wrong.
These rules exceed any rational exercise of the FTC’s authority and violate the free expression rights of all bloggers, tweeters, and Facebook users, which today means just about everyone.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I do not work for the FTC or any branch of the Federal government and I have received nothing of value from the Federal government for this review of their rules.)
P.S. At the bottom of the page is a reference to WordPress and the designer of my blog theme. I got those for free.
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