Due to the latest announcement of changes in regulations for advertisers in the USA, a lot of people talk, write, and speculate about that subject.
Situation In The USA
I published my opinion about an hour ago as a separate note:
The core elements can be summarized as follow:
- Disclose the use of affiliate links on your sites and in your social media profiles.
- Disclose any form of relationship when writing about commercial products and services. Even if you only got a free sample worth $0.99
- Monitor your affiliates and publishers for compliance with the new regulations.
- Always tell the truth.
- Think twice before showing specific results in testimonials.
- Last but not least don't use fake blogs with made up reviews and those kind of things.
You may want to read my entire note.
Update
October 10, 2009
The most important pages to read in the FTC PDF document are pages: 55-81.
FTC: Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising
[377 KiBytes, 81 pages, PDF document]
Advertisements are evaluated from the perspective of a typical consumer.
Three important questions.
(a) Whose opinion is displayed? (average consumer, the advertiser, an expert in that field, ...)
(b) Are there reasons this opinion could have been influenced by the advertiser?
(c) What are the results a typical, average customer can expect?
(Very soon anything without a disclaimer will look suspicious.
)
Situation In The European Union
Let's not forget, the Internet is more or less a medium without national borders.
I mean to say, it is likely that any website targeted to US consumers will effect some of the 500 million consumers in the European union as well.
Maybe a good idea to recall the fact that the European Union cracked down on unfair business practices two years ago.
At the core of the EU regulation efforts are 4 key elements for eliminating unfair business practices.
- A far reaching general clause defining practices which are unfair and therefore prohibited.
- Misleading Practices (Actions and Omissions) and Aggressive Practices.
- Safeguards for vulnerable consumers.
- An extensive black list of practices which are banned in all circumstances.
A Short Teaser - The "Dirty Dozen Black List"
- Bait advertising
- Fake "Free" offers
- Direct exhortations to children to buy advertised products
- False claims about curative capacity
- Advertorials
- Pyramid schemes
- Prize Winning
- Misleading impression of consumers’ rights
- Limited offers (!)
- Language of after-sales service
- Inertia Selling
- Europe-wide guarantees
And of course
"Free" should mean free.
I kept this introduction very short on purpose to motivate you look up the detailed documents published by the European Commission. (links above)
The Bottom Line
- Always tell the truth.
- Don't hide anything about your relationship with the seller/advertiser.
- Be upfront with your motives
- Keep in mind you are writing for a typical consumer. Their expectations are the measure for all things.
- Monitor your agents/affiliates and make sure they comply with all regulations.
- No false pressure.
- Some extra rules for special interest groups like children, low income consumers, and a lot of extra regulations for some markets like health, fitness, financial, real estate, etc. …
Most people in business will be up-to-date with most regulations. Major shift right now is concerning product endorsements and the use of testimonials.
That's it.
No reason to freak out.
Yours
John W. Furst
P.S.: Frank Kern's post about those matters is very educational and entertaining to some extent as well. Go check it out.
- “FTC Declares Shenanigans On All Kinds Of Stuff!”
My comment on Frank's blog: “Absolutely d’accord. Makes sense. I mean, when it starts to rain, what do you do? You take an umbrella, still go out and keep your smile on your face, don’t you. Like in the great movie ‘Singing In The Rain’ … ”
(This entire blog post reflects my personal opinion and is certainly not any form of legal advice.)
Copyright ©2007-2024 by John W. Furst and Fcon21 Email Marketing Strategies And Internet Business Solutions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License (↑).
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[... John points out us Euros have had to live with this quite a while (I have covered it a lot myself in the past) along with some sound tips – I suppose I should disclose that John leaves great comments and has been known to tweet my articles. Don’t forget my old post defining 32 kinds of Blogging and Linking Payola – the FTC should really ...]
Tracked: Oct 08, 18:47
[... If your non-compliance, earnings, (possible fraud triggering criminal charges) are big enough the US- or any European government will hunt you down, no matter where you are. A simple non compliance with a disclosure requirement for example can be interpreted as being a criminal fraud. One internationally operating lawyer I corresponded with pointed at a case of a UK citizen who was extradited from Australia where he lived at the time to the USA. He pleaded guilty for having violated US e-commerce laws and is serving a five year term in a US federal prison. Not funny at all. ...]
Tracked: Oct 11, 05:24
[… from the Federal Trade Commission in the USA which will affect Internet marketing practices effective December 01, 2009. …]
Tracked: Oct 17, 03:21
Internet Marketing Expert - Jim Edwards New rules and guidelines for online Internet marketers and vendors are coming up fast. The date they become effective in the USA is Tuesday, December 1, 2009. I guess some webmasters will be busy over the week
Tracked: Nov 28, 00:36
That’s me, John W. Furst. I just have read a not so bad blog post. However, when I checked out the about page I got turned off. “This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers
Tracked: Mar 18, 02:06