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Federal Trade Commission (USA): Bloggers Must Disclose Payments for Reviews

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mouser:
Excellent news:

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday [10/5/09] took steps to make product information and online reviews more accurate for consumers, regulating blogging for the first time and mandating that testimonials reflect typical results.

The FTC will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/05/technology/AP-US-TEC-Bloggers-FTC.html?_r=1





from http://www.cynical-c.com/

Kamel:
Excellent, very glad this is in effect!

Reviews have become nearly useless all together due to companies paying people off =\

housetier:
I have read a few comments about this, and found an interesting question: what counts as a review? Is it a short message on identi.ca, a forum post, a "review" at amazon, blog posts...

Do recommendations count as reviews?

Eóin:
Though not crystal clear on the matter they do at least seem to be less worried about such things

The FTC's proposal made many bloggers anxious. They said the scrutiny would make them nervous about posting even innocent comments.

To placate such fears, Cleland noted that the FTC's enforcement priorities make it more likely an advertiser would be targeted for disclosure or testimonial violations than a blogger. The exception would be a blogger who runs a ''substantial'' operation that violates FTC rules and already received a warning, he said.
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40hz:
Unfortunately, it's not law. Check out this weasel:

The guides are not binding law, but rather interpretations of law that hope to help advertisers comply with regulations.
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Same old "same old" as far as I can see. :-\

Federal Trade Commission (USA): Bloggers Must Disclose Payments for Reviews

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