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FTC States Bloggers Must Disclose Paid Reviews
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that in the first revision of how endorsements and testimonials work since 1980, bloggers will now be required by the FTC to clearly disclose freebies or payments they received for product reviews. "the commission stopped short Monday of specifying how bloggers must disclose any conflicts of interest. The FTC said its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final guidelines, which had been expected. Penalties include up to $11,000 in fines per violation. The rules take effect Dec. 1."
What about bloggers that are not U.S. citizens?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I may be incorrect on this, but do american politicians need to do the same, i don't believe they do (when considering modern lobbying)?
It's a funny country when the random blogger on the interwebs is held to a higher standard than those that govern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States (it looks like ethic reform bills have been repeatedly struck down... surprise on that on eh?)
What's considered a blog? Is a twitter message included? What about facebook status updates? Affiliate links? It seems that almost every message that mentions a product on sites that make money will now have to include a disclaimer.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
They should have gone with an over-100% value instead. Fine them $11000 or 125% of the value of the items/money/services received in exchange, whichever is more.
Good point, I was thinking about reviews, but ended up writing about everything. My point is that full disclosure is generally a worthless charade. Even though this is specifically about investments it's the best explanation of the sham of full disclosure I've seen.
I used to live in the fear that completely trashing a crappy product would end all further support from that particular manufacturer so I would always tread carefully and balance the bad with the good.
Sure there are definitely those out there who will cut you off at the slightest sign of an unfavourable review, but I've utterly berated products with no consequences other than the manufacturers withdrawal from producing further products in the same vein.
Now I'm constantly asked to produce reviews in exchange for freebies from online purveyors of various gadgetry, there's a fine line that it's possible to cross here in terms of tending towards positive reviews to ensure future support and future freebies.
But it's often the high quality links, well written related content, pagerank and other things that these shops are after- even a negative review will push a particular product page further up Google's rankings and benefit both parties. If more amateur bloggers realised this, perhaps they would focus on taking care of their visitors with truthful, unbiased reviews... after all, without traffic we might as well submit our articles to /dev/null.
However for political and social commentary, what do I get from reading a web log written from the point of view of my own biases? Someone to tell me what I already believe so I can respond with how insightful the poster is?
Unfortunately that seems to be the state of the majority of our political discourse. People fill up on web logs that cater to their own biases (Dailykos, Redstate) or watch "news" networks (MSNBC, Fox) that do the same. Why expose yourself to competing points of view when you can join an echo chamber and shout down anyone who dares to disagree with the group think?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
ANY statement of endorsement in print, media, or on the web, where ANY form of payment, discount, freebie, etc was given, with or without a request for a favorablke posting, requires disclosure
My wife's gardening website includes a link to her friend's wedding bouquet service with language indicating my wife's endorsement.
While she was not paid for that link, they have known each other for 50 years. So many, many free gifts have been exchanged in that time. Even money has probably changed hands between them at some time during their association.
Is a disclaimer required on her site? Because if so, then this is a win for the mega corporations. If I can't recommend my friend's service, then only massive corporations will get any advertising at all.
Hey, why is that marked troll? He's right, if it's a fixed fine you might as well just say that government is going to tax each instance of lobbying the reviewers by $11000. If your overall profits exceeded the fine greatly, that's not a fine, that's just a tax on your profits. And that's assuming you get caught every time!
Really? How do you tell if what they give you is in exchange for your endorsement? Suppose you make your endorsement, and it's particularly awesome for some reason. They spot it and send you some more Slap-Chop. That was in exchange for your endorsement; does that mean you need to disclose it? What if you want to post another nice comment? Do you have to disclose it then? For how many endorsements do you have to disclose that they gave you free stuff?
And while you certainly deserve kudos for seeking out those with conflicting opinions in order to challenge your world views, it is still highly likely you're seeking out those like you. (You're on Slashdot, for goodness sakes.) Most of your friends are likely of similar age, marital status, education, and ethnicity. They have similar interests to you.
Similar interests yes, but not similar beliefs. For instance a number of people on slashdot, including myself, support free markets whereas others prefer socialism. Some support proprietary software, some FOSS, and some like me like or use what works.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Good point, I was thinking about reviews, but ended up writing about everything. My point is that full disclosure is generally a worthless charade. Even though this is specifically about investments it's the best explanation of the sham of full disclosure I've seen.
Thanks for the link. I think what concerns some people though, right up the investment alley, is what I heard a board member maybe the CEO of Whole Foods did some tyme ago. If I recall right Whole Foods was in talks to buy a competitor, and this person using an alias started badmouthing the competitor on investment boards so as to drive it's stock price down.
On the other hand if others are allowed to make entries on blogs the blog owner shouldn't be held liable over what a poster posts. Unless that is it is the policy of the blogger to approve posts before they're added.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?