In an announcement that will surely send a ripple of terror through the mom and beauty blogging business in particular, the Federal Trade Commission has accounced it will soon be cracking down on blogs that offer "reviews" in exchange for free merchandise, as well as those that make affiliate commissions without revealing the arrangement.
Troubled by what seems to be a lack of journalistic ethics, the FTC cites the practice that many bloggers employ in which free merchandise is exchanged for positive reviews.
"If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk," Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices told the Associated Press recently. "Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and ... they have an economic motive for what they're saying, that's information a consumer should know."
"Journalists who work for newspapers and broadcasters are held accountable by their employers, and they generally cannot receive payments from marketers and must return free products after they finish reviewing them," the AP article continues...
"If the guidelines are approved, bloggers would have to back up claims and disclose if they're being compensated — the FTC doesn't currently plan to specify how. The FTC could order violators to stop and pay restitution to customers, and it could ask the Justice Department to sue for civil penalties."
The situation does remind of the Napster flap up a few years back and I predict that a few specific violators may find themselves being held up as unfortunate examples.
