On Saturday my Google Alerts notified me of an article at lexology.com which talked about a merchant agreeing to settle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), having “signed a consent agreement and agreed to pay $250,000 for deceptively representing that endorsements … that were posted on blogs or other websites created by Legacy’s affiliates.” Sad [...]
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Yesterday I received an “Advertising Alert” from Gary Kibel, a lawyer at Davis & Gilbert LLP (D&G). This alert brought to my attention a recent action taken by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against a public relations agency involving claims of misleading online endorsements. It is the first case of FTC bringing an action against [...]
Continue reading about FTC Brings First Action Against Misleading Online Endorsements
Earlier this week I have found out that the Federal Trade Commission has recently created a section within their website, devoting it fully to frequently asked questions on the revised Endorsement Guides (about which I blogged extensively as soon as they got announced). This is a great addition to the FTC’s video responses released back [...]
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The new Federal Trade Commission disclosure Guides are coming into force tomorrow (December 1, 2009). I have just finished listening to a webinar where Jim Edwards is interviewing Mr. Richard Cleland of the FTC, and it does shed some light on both the FTC’s overall stand on the issue, and the peculiarities many affiliate marketers [...]
Continue reading about FTC on Guidelines, Affiliate Disclosures, Compliance
An excellent question was posed by Eric Alexander earlier this morning: Does it [the passing of the new Federal Trade Commission's disclosure rules for "endorsements and testimonials"] only affect product or service endorsements or even all affiliate links, banners, etc that a website may publish? I’ve just given the Guides a second (or really third [...]
Continue reading about Will All Affiliates Be Affected by New FTC’s Rules?
On October 27, 2009 LinkShare launched a Twitter tool for affiliates to use. Almost simultaneously with the LinkShare’s announcement, Amazitter (an iPhone app for tweeting Amazon affiliate links) came out. The wave continued, and yesterday Amazon has changed its policy from no affiliate links on Twitter to let’s “Share on Twitter” and provided a tool [...]
Continue reading about Advice for Advertisers with Affiliates on Twitter
I have just found out that the Federal Trade Commission has published video responses to the following 6 questions: What’s new about the Endorsement Guides? Why did the FTC update the Endorsement Guides? What do the Endorsement Guides mean for bloggers? How do bloggers follow the Endorsement Guides? Is the FTC planning to sue bloggers? [...]
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Earlier today Janet Meiners Thaeler (aka NewspaperGirl) tweeted: CMP.ly is said to have been born “in response to a continued push for transparency and honesty in blogging and within social media and digital communications”. This solution seeks to address the problem of “no established structure or format for disclosures to follow”, and provide “a series [...]
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Yesterday evening the team at #SocialMedia has published a good blog post on the FTC’s new rules. They have referred to my earlier statement that the new guidelines imply a shift in responsibility: from the advertiser (who, back in the years when “such traditional media as television, commercials and print advertisements” mattered most, had to [...]
Continue reading about FTC Means To Say That Everyone is Accountable
Over the past four days I have been receiving numerous emails from merchants and affiliates, asking how to word their texts to meet the new Federal Trade Commission rules for testimonials, reviews and endorsements. Affiliates wonder how to put together disclosures: As a publisher, is there generic type of blurb that I could add to [...]
Continue reading about How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules
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