The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) took action and will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The commission also said advertisers featuring testimonials that claim dramatic results cannot hide behind disclaimers that the results aren’t typical.
In it’s announcement Oct 5, the FTC made clear it will stop the next generation marketing BS and help consumers to differentiate between marketing and user based comments.
I hope that Blog Owners will soon be requested to expose their sponsors to come forward with their real agenda. Some of the leading blogs are nothing but sponsored lead generation platforms, where a registered reader is becoming a lead. If you wonder why you receive all of a sudden email advertising from a company you never dealt with – now you know.
While I’m not sure about the effectiveness of advertising, at least it is a transparent mechanism. Like here on Customer Think.
Axel: visit any freelance website or CraigsList, and you will see many postings for blog writers. Companies want them to produce product reviews and the ads aren’t shy about stipulating that each unit of their output must be unique commentary. There are software programs available to check for word and sentence duplication in order to create the illusion that each posting is unique. Which of course, is the issue the FTC is attacking, since many/most/all (take your pick)”reviews” are written by the the same writer, who collected a fee.
In the wake of the FTC ruling, what will these blog writers do? Hopefully, find a more ethical line of work. As far as the companies that are paying them? They’re already looking for The Next Loophole.