Slashdot Mirror
UK Targets Twitter and Blog Endorsements
krou writes "The UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is cracking down on 'Twitter users and bloggers using their online presence to endorse products and companies without clearly stating their relationship with the brand.' They described such endorsements, including 'comments about services and products on blogs and microblogs such as Twitter,' as 'deceptive' under fair trading rules. While the US Federal Trade Commission already requires such endorsements to be labelled with 'ad' or 'spon,' the UK doesn't have any such requirement. In relation to this, the OFT has launched an investigation into Handpicked Media, because the OFT is 'insisting that it must clearly state when promotional comments have been paid for.'"
I miss the more innocent age of the internet before there was astroturfing.
These days, I more or less assume any favorable opinion about a commercial product is astroturfed, unless I have compelling evidence to the contrary.
I don't know if I would go so far as to call it a matter of "ethics."
Fraudulently pretending to be an objective third party for financial gain. That's ethics alright and the government should come down on them like a ton of bricks. Such people should be in jail if they make a habit of it.
Think it doesn't matter? If it didn't agents would be happy to announce their affiliation. For some strange reason they don't. Why would that be I wonder?
Apart from anything else company legal structures require accountability because they act as proxies for real people and when company agents can be anonymous there is no accountability.
But less government invading the lives of the private sector the better.
In general true but not when there is this amount of fraud going on.
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How many million man hours has the advertising industry cost today?
For those dopey slashdotters like me who assumed most astroturfing is the PR dept of a major firm coming back from their Friday lunch, follow the link in the summary. Took a random path through handpickedmedia's website and then read the twitter posts of PerfHappyMum. Seems just like every other life coach (what the hell are THEY?);
children asleep two hours early!
soon followed by
Just leaving the preview screening of "tangled", most refreshing cartoon since Shreck, loved it
"She" is in the parenting "channel" of handpicked's website but on Twitter there is no indication it's paid for. Assume that a significant amount of the conversation is with other handpickedmedia's 'channels'? If they can investigate the volume going up in the adverts (what did happen to that Ofcom report? Anyone know?) then this is an organisation of cynicism that has shocked me.