The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced new rules today regarding disclosure of freebies and financial interests by bloggers and their word-of-mouth endorsements.
Wired reports that bloggers face fines up to $11,000 for failure to provide proper disclosure, as spelled out in Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which takes effect December 1, 2009.
Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.
The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.
All affiliate managers should get acquainted with this issue fast and update their terms and conditions accordingly.
Read the FTC press release on blogger disclosure at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm.
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Interesting article for bloggers to read!
I am not really sure how they differentiate, but I keep seeing it in reference to blogs. There are some gray areas. The AffiliateSummit.com site is completely powered by WordPress, not just the blog, but every page.
And there are plenty of sites selling products and services that are not blogs.
I am not aware of the compliance meeting. I’ll peek around and see what’s going on.
Shawn is this just for blogs, or websites too? I wonder how they know the difference? Some wordpress blogs are more like websites than blogs, but depending on the criteria they have to identify offenders, I wonder if they know the difference?
I heard there would be a meet of AM industry leaders to get a model for compliance? It talks about this on the PMA site. Are you attending?
Yes, I think it’s a good thing, so long as it’s clear how to comply.
If it’s ambiguous like CAN-SPAM was at the start, it could be problematic.
I think this is a really good thing. The paid for post advertisers forced the bloggers not to disclose. Now they will have to allow the disclosure.
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