Geno on October 20th, 2009

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

Geno on October 12th, 2009

Introduced by Amazon back in late nineties, reviews have become a powerful force to drive sales for online businesses of all types. With the attention that online reviews have been receiving from the Federal Trade Commission lately, it seems appropriate to look into the power behind them. A recent CNN article has quoted some interesting [...]

Continue reading about Negative Reviews Increase Sales

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 [...]

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Geno on October 7th, 2009

A tremendous tsunami of blog posts and articles has been raised by the recent Federal Trade Commission’s announcement of its guides for disclosing the sponsor-endorser element in testimonials and endorsements. At the time of this post there currently are 948 news articles and close to 4,000 blog posts on the topic: The wave was to [...]

Continue reading about FTC Says the $11000 Fine “is Not True”

Geno on October 7th, 2009

So the Federal Trade Commission has announced the new rules for disclosing the sponsor-endorser relationships. This includes all affiliates that tweet, post, or publish any other online content that has affiliate links embedded in it (or content on which they earn money). But how do you squeeze an appropriate disclosure into the 140 characters of [...]

Continue reading about Twitter Hashtags for Affiliate Tweets

—————————————————– Edit: 2 follow-up posts: (i) FTC Says the $11000 Fine “is Not True”, (ii) How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules —————————————————– On 1 December 2009 the new Federal Trade Commission’s endorsements/testimonials rules are coming into force. I am referring to the “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in [...]

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Geno on June 23rd, 2009

In continuation of my earlier posted thoughts on the effectiveness of blog reviews, it seems appropriate to now turn to the Federal Trade Commission’s plans to monitor blogs for paid/biased reviews. On Sunday, the Associated Press wrote that blogging, which continues blooming, “has taken on characteristics of community journalism — but without consensus on the [...]

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