This was the buzz lately on the blogging world in the United States and some people ask, especially those who are not from the U.S. if they are governed by this law.
If you do paid or sponsored review or post for a paid to post network from the U.S. then you are enjoined to follow this rule by the FTC. The law will be enforced by December 1, 2009, so those who blog for money should beware and start making your site wide disclosure.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. wants bloggers to disclose any material connections, if you get the product you are reviewing for free or if you are paid to write that review. The same disclosure policy also applies to celebrities who are doing product endorsements.
The law was developed “to stop fake, deceptive and unfair business practices which can mislead consumers”. Consumers worldwide can file their complaint at the FTC website if they feel the are reading a fake advertising strategy. Read the full text of the FTC guideline here.
The U.S. government also want to control advertisement and activities on the internet especially online social media such as Twitter and Facebook where everyone can pitch their products and services.
I’ve been doing paid post for a year now and most network are strict with a site wide disclosure policy and some even want the disclosure right on the post itself.
Some bloggers complain about the huge drop on their page rank and I believe this is because of the penalty imposed by the big G who is for the disclosure policy. Most paid to post blog seems to write without having real knowledge of the product or doing any research at all and that is indeed unfair if they haven’t really tried the product or knows anyone they can get a feedback from.
Honestly I am for this policy since we have the right to know weather their advertisement is true or not. Same reason I have a Press Release category so my readers would know it’s a press release especially if the service or promotion is too good to be true.
