Monday, the Federal Trade Commission issued an 81 page document entitled “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” requiring bloggers who write testimonials about products to disclose gifts or payments they receive. So if a company sends you a product, you will be scrutinized by the government, regardless whether you were asked to post a review or not. Whether it be free review copies of books, trips to resorts, payments, tshirts, doesn’t matter. Per the gov – you better disclose it or, as the Washington Post reports, you’ll be fined up to $11,000 per incident.

Seems pretty cut and dry, right?  No grey areas at all.  How about the blogger who has extoled the virtues of a certain graphics design application for quite some time.  Suddenly, said company sends him a free copy of their latest release and he writes a review of it. He didn’t ask for the copy, would have bought it anyway, and reviewed it.  Still need to be disclosed?  I have no idea to be honest.

There are also now liability guidelines with respect to bloggers making unsubstantiated claims about products that they are endorsing and the responsiblity of the product maker to “police” their bloggers.  The FTC said that they would consider “reasonable effort” on the part of the advertiser to keep the endorsers in line.  So, I guess if you have “endorsers” making wild claims there may be some cause for concern there.  I’d hope any prudent business person wouldn’t need the FTC to tell them to be concerned about that but really, if I want to run my business into the ground at lightning speed it should be my perogative.

I am stifling a “rant” as best I can here in an effort to be helpful to any small business owners who may be using blogs for their marketing efforts.  I really have to make one glaring, ridiculous, point on this whole matter though.  If you are a small business that is giving away products or services in return for endorsements, perhaps a shift to conventional media (newspapers, magazines) may be in order.  Here’s why:

The FTC holds no authority to regulate speech unless it is classified as “commercial speech”.  Therefore, in order to assert it’s jurisdiction over bloggers, it simply redefined their activities as “commercial speech”.   “Traditional Media”, ie- newspapers, magazines, etc., are not classified as such and, per the FTC “have a legacy of editorial independence.”  Per the FTC guidelines, in these cases, “knowing whether the media entity that published the review paid for the item in question would not affect the weight consumers give to the reviewer’s statements.”   Huh?

So, because the FTC thinks consumers trust newspapers and magazines, it’s not necessary for them to be transparent.  However, bloggers are iffy(I knew it!) and thus need to put themselves above suspicion. When criticized and pressed, an agency official told CNET, “As a practical matter, we don’t have the resources to look at 500,000 blogs.  Right now, we’re trying to focus on education.”

I for one am always comforted when a government agency grants itself new powers but promises to use them only sparingly and judiciously.  Last I checked this was still a free market society only now not only are consumers hurt — as product recommendations from other consumers are made scarcer, but free speech itself is chilled as individuals become less willing to put virtual pen to virtual paper out of fear that they may violate some obscure federal edict.

PS – I was recently given a used Dale Carnegie book that I am considering reading.  Should I actually read it and then decide to mention it, I’ll make sure to give credit. Or wait, do I credit Mr. Carnegie or the person that gave me the book?  Or what if the knowledge garnered from the book makes me some money? Um, nevermind. I’m not going to read it. It’s not worth it.