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FTC To Target Advertisers, Not Bloggers, In New Guidelines

By Fawn Johnson, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The Federal Trade Commission doesn't intend to bring individual cases against bloggers or tweeters who accept cash or gifts to tout a company's products or services, an FTC official said Wednesday.

"We are not planning on investigating individual bloggers," said Mary Engle, associate director for advertising practices at the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

"We will be focusing any enforcements on advertisers, not on individual endorsers," Engle said during a telephone press conference.

The FTC earlier this month adopted the first revisions to federal guidelines on endorsements and testimonial advertising since 1980.

The guidelines also are the first to address bloggers and other social media.

Bloggers who endorse a company, product or service because they are paid by the firm or by a third party have to come clean about the relationship, according to the new guidelines.

In an attempt to clarify misconceptions that the FTC now will be mining the blogosphere for unsavory endorsements, Engle said the FTC's focus has always been on "bad actor" advertisers.

"If a marketing company is paying people per blog or per tweet and not disclosing that in a large marketing scheme, then we can bring an investigation and that can lead to a lawsuit against the company," Engle said.

Bloggers are expected to post whether they are paid for a positive post or if they received free products to review, "but the primary obligation is on the advertiser to tell the blogger to do it," Engle said.

Connections between advertisers and endorsers must be disclosed once the revised guidelines take effect on Dec. 1.

The new guidelines also rein in advertisers' ability to tout highly unusual results of a product, saying the ads also must clearly disclose results that consumers can generally expect.

Engle said outlier testimonials were the primary motivator for the revisions.

Statements of unusual product results are rampant in the weight-loss industry, where advertisers tend to show consumers who have slimmed down far more than a typical user could expect.

"We identified a real problem where basically advertisers were evading their responsibility," Engle said. Consumers were still being deceived by these ads even if advertisers inserted the words, "results not typical," she said.

Under the revised guidelines, if a company's advertisement refers to findings of corporate-sponsored research, the ad must disclose the link between the company and the research organization.

-By Fawn Johnson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263; fawn.johnson@dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  10-14-091225ET
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