FTC Demands Search Engines Separate Paid Advertisements From Search Results

An anonymous reader notes that the FTC has sent letters to search engine companies (PDF) telling them to make sure advertisements are clearly distinguishable from search results. "According to both the FTC staff's original search engine guidance and the updated guidance, failing to clearly and prominently distinguish advertising from natural search results could be a deceptive practice. The updated guidance emphasizes the need for visual cues, labels, or other techniques to effectively distinguish advertisements, in order to avoid misleading consumers, and it makes recommendations for ensuring that disclosures commonly used to identify advertising are noticeable and understandable to consumers. The letters note that the principles of the original guidance still apply, even as search and the business of search continue to evolve. The letters observe that social media, mobile apps, voice assistants on mobile devices, and specialized search results that are integrated into general search results offer consumers new ways of getting information. The guidance advises that regardless of the precise form that search takes now or in the future, paid search results and other forms of advertising should be clearly distinguishable from natural search results."

Comments

Re:Sounds like BS to me

[CanHasDIY]

Why is thre a need to do this.. What does it matter?

Deception. The FTC is saying you can't make a paid-for ad look like a legitimate search result, because it's deceptive and unfair to both the consumer and other legitimate businesses who don't have the resources to pay Google boo-koo bucks for prime ad space. Not saying it's right or wrong, just pointing out the rationale.

As part of captialism if people get tired of getting the advertisements they will go to another search engine.

Ah, no, actually, that's a function of the free market, not capitalism in general, and as it should be abundantly clear at this point, there is not and never has been such a thing as a free market (that's not necessarily bad, BTW).

There is no reason for this.

Sure there is! It might not be a good one, or one you agree with, but there is a reason. There's always a reason.