FTC wants to regulate bloggers
By John Lister
Acme products are the best quality and value on the market. And they are paying me $25 to say that.
Of course, this isn’t true. But if it were, I could face action from the Federal Trade Commission if proposed changes to their rules go ahead.
The FTC wants it clearly stated that it has the power to regulate bloggers who promote products and services in their writing in return for payments, freebies or other undue influences. According to the Associated Press, “The FTC could order violators to stop and pay restitution to customers, and it could ask the Justice Department to sue for civil penalties.”
As well as direct payments from a firm, the rules would also cover situations where bloggers write a post praising a product, then include a link to buy it online, from which they collect a percentage of any sales.
I’m not going to defend bloggers whose opinions are for sale. BLORGE, like any other respectable Web site, does not tolerate such actions. But is such activity really an appropriate area for federal regulation?
The rules would be a nightmare to enforce. You might assume that somebody who gushes over a product is on the take, but it’s perfectly possible they genuinely believe what they are saying. And “assume” isn’t – or at least should not be – a good enough standard for legal consequences. So does the FTC intend to get court orders to rummage through their PayPal accounts and inboxes to find evidence of the payoff?
The regulations would also have some major international jurisdiction issues. I’m a British writer working for an Australian Web site owner. If I dishonestly plug a Canadian firm’s product in an article read by a United States citizen, what power does the FTC have, and over whom?
Most of all, though, the regulations would bring in a breathtaking set of double-standards. No self-respecting newspaper would ever allow journalists to promote a product for their own personal gain. But, in Britain at least (and as far as I can tell, the U.S. too), the only legal restrictions on such behavior are those on financial writers. Yet the same actions which a newspaper writer can carry out perfectly legally would be banned among Web site writers. That’s simply wrong.
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June 24th, 2009
So what about the million others who are paid to endorse a certain product via their median of communication? Sorry, but you’re infringing upon my rights, FTC.