Soon, Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure
And an excerpt:
The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter. A second major change, which was not aimed specifically at bloggers or social media, was to eliminate the ability of advertisers to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement.
For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print.
5 comments:
Very interesting. I wonder how this will effect the availability of product reviews. I don't really have a problem saying that things are/were provided to me when it happens.
Interesting...
I've heard this topic was part of a heated discussion at the Blogher convention in Chicago this year. It will be interesting to see what happens once December 1st rolls around. I wonder how tightly this will be regulated.
Wow, thanks very much Anne. I never really received more than a few items to review, so it won't affect me much, but that's really good to know about. Not so sure I like so much involvement by the government, though!
Well damn, I kinda like the swag. Oh well.
Hi Anne, how are you?
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