subject: New FTC Guidelines [print this page] The new FTC guidelines were affected on Dec 1st.Do you know how it effects you? If you don't it could get you into a law suit. Yes that is what I said. The new Federal Trade Commission guidelines affects bloggers who are doing paid product reviews. The new guidelines specify that bloggers should disclose when they are being paid to do product reviews. Since there are so many paid bloggers out on the internet that perform this kind of service this is really going to change the way articles and reviews are done from this point forward.
Additionally, the FTC new guidelines do not allow any kind of income claims to be made by individuals that are doing testimonials when done by article or video. Also if the reviewer has received any kind of compensation for the testimonial that has to be revealed as well just like that of bloggers. Any previous testimonials or endorsements that do not adhere to the new guidelines, need to be removed immediately. If not done, there's a high risk of FTC making an example.
These are big changes that have a significant impact. So if you have any endorsements on any of your web sites you need to remove them until you have had time to review each one to make sure that it complies with the new guidelines. This could be a time consuming and may require you to close down a campaign till you ensure that materials used are compliant.
There are many articles that go into details but the fact is you can't take this lightly. You need to take action to make sure your business is not shut down. The fines can be fairly steep as is pointed out by Adam Ostrow where he says they could be as high as $11,000 for not disclosing this information.
This kind of behavior has been going on for a long time in the internet world and it will talk a long time for all of this to be weeded out. The FTC has a lot work to do when it comes to enforcing these new guidelines.Make sure you are not one of the ones they choose to make an example of as they beginning to enforce these guidelines.
