YAY! MORONS!

[solarbird]

Interview with Richard Cleland of the FTC regarding new rules requiring individual bloggers - specifically including unpaid bloggers of any kind - include disclosures with reviews of any sort - books, devices, and so on. Book reviews are the big cranky right now, because it's normal for publishers to send out a bunch of copies of any book for

Comments

[l33tminion]

As far as I can tell after reading the updated guidelines (the relevant bit (§255.5 Disclosure of material connections) starts on p. 75, examples 7-9 are especially relevant to online media), this isn't a problem. The meat of it:

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.

The actual text of the revised regulation doesn't seem to make any distinction between new and traditional media, except to the extent that affects audience expectations. The enforcement of the policy is directed at the companies, not the endorsers, as before. The effect of the policy will probably be that companies will include "say you got a free copy of this product" in the letter that comes with said product and reviewers will start posts with "we received a copy of [product] from [company]". In other words, it's an incredibly minimal burden on those making a good-faith effort not to mislead their audience, and allows the FTC to go after deceptive astroturf campaigns. That last is a good thing for independent bloggers, having the internet be a free zone for deceptive advertising practices doesn't help anyone's credibility.