Thread: FTC to Regulate Blogging

Well, I mean, the internet is just a series of tubes. What is there to not understand? xD

I've blogged and forum posted so much about this issue I'm almost dizzy.

But I thought I'd post here 3 MUST READ articles about the issue.
(I'll save you from all my commentary.) But if you are at all concerned about or confused about what this means to your business, be sure to read these.

FTC Responds to Blogger Fears: "That $11,000 Fine Is Not True"
Retracts rumor they are going to issue fines, goes into disclosures needed and how they are going to enforce. Lots of important info.


New FTC Rules for Testimonials and Endorsements in Marketing
Joel Comm's ATTORNEY weighs in on his interpretation and what you need to do.

Blogger/Affiliate Disclosure Policy Generator
Will make your life easier. Enjoy!Hope this helps and best of luck!

I don't think this will affect many people personally. The only people it will affect is the people giving paid reviews on products. And you can always hide the terms somewhere on the blog.

For the average blogger all they have to do is say they're not affiliated with the company providing the product or whatever.

Unless your business plan is reviewing shady products and profiting off other peoples losses, you're ok.

This is more targeted at the "flog" (fake blog) style affiliate landing pages.

If the FTC want to regulate something they should go after all the porn tube site popping up.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

They will probably target a couple of large bloggers or product review sites that are taking payoffs for favorable product endorsements. I think a lot of the larger sites do receive free products to review. I do not see that as being a bad thing as long as the reviews are fair. But when a site gets thousands of dollars to write a favorable product review, that crosses a line. They cannot go after every site, but they can scare a lot of bloggers if they successfully prosecute a few of the big ones.

I believe that the target is the pay-to-blog sites.

Matt Cutts wrote a post complaining about pay to post. In the post he used an example of about medical devices. The posts themselves don’t reveal it, but the blog posts turn out to be “paid posts.” Where someone paid evil money to receive a review, and the paid review includes a link with the keyword. MC complains that "There’s no disclosure inside these entries whether these posts are paid, nor do the posts use the nofollow attribute or some other mechanism so that search engines aren’t affected."

Selling links that pass PageRank

I always find it ironic that the largest link seller on the web has a vendetta against sites that sell links or provide paid content.

Old mantra: Do no harm.

New mantra: No one should be allowed to make money on the web unless their name is Google.

Google doesn't care at all about link selling. As long as it's clearly stated and includes a nofollow. You know all the ads they sell have 'Ads by Google' and don't pass any link juice, right?

Originally Posted by nux

Google doesn't care at all about link selling. As long as it's clearly stated and includes a nofollow. You know all the ads they sell have 'Ads by Google' and don't pass any link juice, right?

Yeah but Google doesn't own the internet. There just another website like any other. But if you want to be featured on the Google website you have to follow their rules.

On topic of this FTC I read that from Joel comm's blog. This is really bad. Internet revenues might drop considerably after this. Since it pushes alot of marketers into unneeded costs to market products. I think it would make some products unprofitable to sell if you have to hire an attorney to make sure your product reviews are legal -- Which you might need to convince someone to buy your product. Its just another red tape to hinder to business.

Originally Posted by nux

Google doesn't care at all about link selling. As long as it's clearly stated and includes a nofollow. You know all the ads they sell have 'Ads by Google' and don't pass any link juice, right?

I was being facetious.

I am an AdWords trainer and a web developer.

There is something that is not mentioned is that if your not a U.S citizen the law probably won't apply to you.
It won't have any effect of the level of dishonest product testimonials, The bad ones will just move offshore or offshore ones will pick up the tab and refill it. Furthermore, the FTC, these are the same guys that put the CAN-SPAM regulation. Has that any effect on the spam you receive in your mailbox? No probably not.

Really f'in useless would anyone agree?


Keldorn