Bloggers: FTC has new guidelines for endorsements
Blogger Barbie
Are bloggers subject to the same conflict of interest standards as journalists? Is disclosure enough or should bloggers not take any sort of product in exchange for reviews. Are bloggers journalists?
The FTC is attempting to tackle some of these questions in their new Final Guides governing endorsements, testimonials.
The Guides, which were last updated in 1980, spell out how advertisers need to act to disclose connections between the company and people endorsing the product.
It will be the “material connections” segment of the new guidelines that will create most uproar among consumers who regularly endorse products.
The new guidelines include expamples of:
‘ “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.’
What do you think? No surprises here for business journalists, right?
