The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced today that they will begin regulating bloggers starting December 1st. The FTC’s new web guidelines will regulate how bloggers in the US disclose information about product reviews and/or trips sponsored by companies.
If you’re a blogger and you’re concerned at all, take note of this:
…the FTC will more likely go after an advertiser instead of a blogger for violations. The exception would be a blogger who runs a ‘’substantial” operation that violates FTC rules and already received a warning, he said.
As you may or may not know, Doobybrain.com receives products for review quite frequently and generally speaking, I write about them only if I like the products (or if the product flat-out sucks). I understand that in the past I haven’t disclosed which products were sent to me and which ones I bought and wrote about on my own, but rest assured that I’ve never been coerced into swaying my reviews in any particular direction by any company (and should they ever ask, you can also rest assured that I’m ready to tell them tough luck).
With that said, I am actually siding with the FTC here. I think it’ll be good for readers and bloggers to have this sort of information disclosed in a clear manner. So from here on in, at the bottom of each review, I will add a note if the product/service was offered to me in exchange for a write-up. If you don’t see one, that’s because I went out and bought it on my own.
Feel free to share your thoughts on the matter in the comments below.
