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
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
|