New FTC Guidelines
New FTC Guidelines
New FTC Guidelines
New FTC Guidelines
As you no doubt have heard by now, the FTC recently released their new updated
Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. And it is causing quite a stir amongst the Internet Marketing community.
And as such, I felt I needed to chime in on this subject and give my opinion for anyone who might be interested in what I had to say.
There are a number of interesting issues that will affect our livelihoods in the future, some more than others, and in this report I have tried to both calm the masses about the ones that I feel are not a big deal, and encourage them to pay close attention to the ones that I feel could have a VERY big impact on our industry as a whole.
I believe that, for the most part, the FTC's new updated rules and regulations in 16 CFR Part 255 - Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (which you can get in whole here), are a GOOD thing.
Their purpose seems to be one of trying to protect the public from the many scams and misleading advertising practices that are all over the Internet Advertising Industry today. And if they can pull it off in the manner they are hoping for, it WILL clean up the net quite a bit and get rid of a LOT of Scams and Snake Oil Salesmen.
However, the structuring of these new updated regulations are ambiguous at best, and so vague in part, as to leave it open totally to interpretation...NOT hard and fast rules.
And unfortunately, as usual, it is solely the FTC's interpretation that decides the validity of any and all cases they decide to prosecute.
And while you would always have your day in court and could certainly fight them if you feel they interpreted your situation wrong, it will STILL be a VERY expensive exercise. One that no matter how well off you might be...NOBODY needs!
Their criteria seems to fall into two main areas that would affect us as Internet Marketers, those being
1. the need to disclose any affiliation we might have with the products or services we are promoting and/or endorsing...and
2. what they feel is the further need to clean up the testimonials that are being used in advertising through ALL media formats.
As to the first criteria...
They want us to "Clearly and Conspicuously" make the readers aware of any
connection we might have with the products owner. This includes (but is not limited to) getting paid if a sale occurs.
It also includes disclosing that you received a complimentary promotional copy of the products you are promoting, if that be the case.
The second criteria that this report deals with, is the new regulations concerning Endorsements and Testimonials. And it is a bit more serious and harder to comply with than the first one.
They have now gone so far as to set the regulatory demands on testimonials so
stringent as to render them either very difficult and expensive (if not impossible) to comply with, or once complied with, to render them virtually useless by negating the testimonial with the required disclaimer and statement of Typical Expectations.
We can no longer use testimonials from people who have achieved great success with our products without going into an explanation of how that was unusual and telling them what the typical person can hope to achieve.
Now this on the surface would not seem to be a big deal and in essence should be a good thing for the consumer. But when you are releasing a new product, the only way you have to judge what is NORMAL, is by your own testing and that of your peers testimonials!
Up until now, telling the public that "These Results Are NOT Typical" was enough to satisfy the FTC and I had no problem with that, since if the person reading the testimonial couldn't figure that out for themselves, they probably SHOULD be told...point blank!
But that is no longer good enough for the FTC!
NOW they want us to state what the Typical Results ARE! And if you don't have access to such data and/or cannot get it before the sales pages are written (as is usually the case) you can only use generic testimonials that in no way suggest what it is possible to do. Or alternately, use none at all!
All in all, what this means is that it all comes down to the FTC's opinion of your situation, and NOT any hard and fast rules. It is completely up to their discretionary interpretation as to whether or not they want to come after you.
SCARY! Isn't it?
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