Our Goverment Gone Wild For Blogs
Today marks the first day of the new FTC guidelines for blogs and how they advertise. In a nutshell, the law states that a blog or website must disclose any relationship between the blog and the advertiser. For example if I decide to write a post about how great Aunt Milles Amazing Ale and rave about it, I must tell my readers that I either have been paid by Aunt Millie for doing so, or if Aunt Millie sent me a free six pack that must also be disclosed.
Aunt Millies Awesome Ale
This new law was made to inform unknowing readers that Aunt Millie has given me something to promote her product. Therefore the endorsement might be bias in her favor. My first thought when I read about the new FTC rule was, this is no big deal to me. After all I rarely ever do an endorsement, at least I haven’t done one willingly. But now that I look back at some of my posts, I have endorsed certain things, not to be paid for it, but to give my honest perspective.
Take the last post for instance about the newest MLM company involving Donald Trump. While I am not endorsing the product in the least, I am endorsing two friends who are successful selling it. Now I guess I have to think and wonder if I am somehow breaking any new law because of that post. I am not being paid for it, I haven’t received anything for it, except a nice thank you. So am I being paranoid?
The reason I started to blog, was to give my readers my honest rants and raves. I never took into consideration that I could somehow break any laws. This new law carries with it some hefty fines, up to $11,000, not to mention the need to hire a lawyer to represent yourself in court. I never thought I would have to worry about writing my thoughts and breaking any laws.
Isn’t our government screwed up enough? Do they have to add this bull shit and go after blogs?? They can’t keep our economy going yet they come up with this law.
Today I have had at least 25 emails relating to this subject. How will they police such a law? Are they adding this new policing policy with the same people that are already behind in their everyday work duties. Or are they hiring new people who will be paid by us to go after these notorious criminals? This smacks of our government gone wild, out of control and smells very much like McCarthyism.
There are other parts of this new law that are troubling to me also. Not only is this law unworkable, it seems to me they are giving traditional media; newspapers, magazines, radio a free pass and just going after bloggers. Why is this? Is it our governments first steps to try and control the internet as we know it? One of the major parts of our constitution devoted to allowing and protecting free speech, which was brought about from our forefathers dying for this basic right.
When I say unworkable I mean just that. How can they police the internet equally? How are they supposed to make sure Tweeters are disclosing in their 140 character blurb? How about an advertiser that is on one of our widgets, must we go through each advert and make sure they have no endorsements on their blog or website? Are we also held liable for someone else’s blog?
I do believe we already have on the books laws about fraud, why don’t they just enforce those? While I do hope this new law is meant as a good thing for the consumer, I am afraid of the consequences for my fellow bloggers.
The funny thing is, I just watched a movie, that had one of the main characters holding a bottle of name brand beer. I know that the beer company paid a lot of money to make sure the label was shown on the big screen. Shouldn’t the new law make sure they run a scrolling message on the bottom of the screen exclaiming the movie is getting paid to show the beers name?
I am wondering if some of my favorite blogs, that go balls to the walls, in regards to saying what they want, will soon be tamed into just another vanilla boring blurb of uniformed mush.
What say you??
Related articles by Zemanta
- FTC to bloggers: Fess up or pay up (news.cnet.com)
- Editorial: Truth in Advertising, Offline or Online (nytimes.com)
- Wisdom of the crowd | Who’s behind the blog that may ruin your reputation? (guardian.co.uk)
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Abs King Scam
Camden
Lilly
Mike
Nicky
I think if they want to shut bloggers up they will hire government employees to monitor and tame/shutdown what they find objectionable. Kind of reminds me of some other countries that have their Internet banned in so many areas. Government, especially this current administration wants to control everything. Look at what they control now in private industry that has never been done before. Scary. Plain scary. Next is health care. Then what? Big hug Glenn. s:(
All I can say is…thank god I live in Canada.
But I say that with a certain amount of cynicism. We’re seeing more and more knee jerk reactions here too, as well as attempts to control everything as well.
I think many in government get antsy because they have no control over the internet. It’s actually bigger than government! Is this about truth in advertising? Ok, than a simple statement that this post is an advertisement is sufficient. Monitoring? Not even possible!
I don’t believe it is an attempt to squelch the pennies that bloggers earn for this advertising. I do think it’s a knee jerk reaction (as always) and misguided.
I wonder if this law applies in the UK, and I wonder if it doesnt apply in the uk will it affect the fact that some of my readers are from America. The law around blogs has always been sketchy to say the least and to be honest I think we should be just left alone, I mean everyone is entitled to have an opinion and if a blogger gets to make a few dollars/pounds or whatever off his/her opinion then so what! the only people benefitting from this ludicrous law is the government trying to snatch yet more money from the hands of ordinary people.
I love this blog, you do a cool job here dude, you definately on the same wavelength as me, keep it going and hope you come by soon, take care matey.
Adam (blokebuddy Author)
Was I dreaming that there was such a thing as “FREEDOM of Speech’
Or is it the word ‘FREEDOM’ that I was dreaming about.
Nevertheless…the Government is most definitely overstepping the grounds of the American Citizens and their rights to speak freely.
A blog is simply a personal web-log. I wander when they will be monitoring ones own personal cell phones!
Things are moving backward as oppose to forward where Government officials are concerned.
This is my opinion and i am in no means selling anything by it
I believe it’s the word ‘FREEDOM’ that we were wrong about. Though our forefathers fought and died for it, we are slowly losing it bit by bit. For some of us, advertising on our blogs is how we make ends meet, especially in this economy with such high unemployment rates. I definitely believe that this is one of many steps in the gov controlling the PEOPLE, not just the internet. Too bad we were raised with more of an idea of freedom than we live in now and will fight for our freedom once again if necessary.
Glenn, what a load of crap! Man,what is going on there? I leave my nice little meth lab-infested town in Illinois,and this is what happens!!! I’m glad I’m on the edge of a jungle in the Philippines,and I’m going to blog what I frickin’(excuse the language)want and endorse or say good things about who ever I want. By the way,Glenn, I want all your readers to know what a great,helpful guy you are,and thanks for helping me with some recent computer issues. And no,I am NOT getting any sort of kickback from MOB for that, and we know all about kickbacks in the Philippines,let me tell you.
I am pleased to announce you have received a blog award. Congrats!
Jump over to my blog http://www.the-fly-on-the-wall.com to check it out. Have a great day!
I wonder how this’ll affect affiliate marketers like myself? If I have a link to a website like amazon.com will I have to mention that?
Boy that news is kind of scary. There is such a fine line between advertising for a company or a person, and getting a Kickback. Will be interested in the next chapter to this subject.
I’m going to go with the not give a damn card. When you had mentioned posts where you unintentionally endorsed something, I realized I believe I’ve done the same with stuff like Laser Hair Removal and Emla Cream, etc. It just sounds interesting as to how they’d go about breaking down the blogs.
Hell on facebook, twitter the whole purpose is to write a bunch of random nonsense and if includes a product, who gives a fluff? The world makes me laugh, I must say. As long as there’s some control to be had, the people up there will go for it, until the rest of us realize that what those “big” guys are doing are bullshit and they’re no different from the rest of us. They might be a bit better since they seem to excel at taking advantage of people over and over again, without any real repercussions. But when and if everyone just stand on up and say fuck you, you’ll have to shoot us down before we give a damn about what you have to say…I wonder if they’ll just turn and shoot everyone? We all should be able to kick some ass =P
Hmm maybe raging too much and a bit overdramatic! Will be interesting to see what happens, I won’t stop writing as I have been though.
I wanted to add that I imagine it may not be as big of a deal as it initially sounds. This does sound great when I think about all the sites where people write reviews about a product. It always sounds over enthusiastic and quite obvious that there’s money involved, so maybe it might make reviews appear more geniune…
I don’t know but until stuff actually done and we see a clear picture of what they’re trying to control then meh. Does sound a bit like paranoia….but time will tell
great post glenn. i agree with some of your issues. in my observations the people here work to hard just to support the government. and they don’t have money to supports themselves. for a country that’s free it’s very expensive to live in America. i had to come to America to be poor. i was better off in my own country but i married American man who is poor but i didn’t married for money. i married for love anyway.
What’s up, MOB? This is a fantastic post. As far as this new law goes, I’m not sweating it. There is no way they can enforce this law. There are millions of blogs on the net already, and thousands of new ones each day. This is simply another attempt by politicians to silence their blogger critics. I’m not doing anything differently at ITRH. There is no way I’ll stop saying what’s on my mind. This is still America, and I have the right to say whatever I want.
This law will be enforced the same way they enforce copyright laws on the net. They’ll take potshots and every once in a while they’ll grab some poor sucker, sue his ass broke, and then publicize it all over the place to keep us all scared. Now is the time for us bloggers to band together and exercise our constitutional rights. If we stand together and yell “NO” at the top of out lungs we can win this thing.
I’ll never let my blog turn into some pussy-ass mommy blog. If they want me, let them come and get me. I’m broke, jobless, and have nothing. What else can they take from me? As far as my freedom goes, they’ll never take that no matter what they do. My freedom is inside me. They can’t take that away no matter what they do! The american people need to stop being soft, passive idiots and do what our forefathers did. Do you honestly think George Washington and John Adams would have put up with this shit?
Thank god for your blog, because I didn’t even know this! Here I just wanted to start a fun blog with some friends and don’t even know the new laws! Well as Thomas Jefferson said “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have!”
uh-oh.
1984 becomes reality more and more every day – but for the most part most people don’t really notice. I’m going to have to agree with Chris in that ultimately it will be handled just like copywrite infringement, and music downloads with the occassional nabbing of an unsuspecting taxpayer to be used as an example.
I like your comparison to product placements in movies and TV – in that ultimately it’s difficult to enforce one without the other.
Thanks too for the beer idea – if it’s free for me – it’s delicious on my blog!
This would be impossible to control, how can they control all the blogs, sites, social networking sites that are promoting? And the fine is absolutely surprising $11,000!!
They couldn’t control them all, you’re right. It’s just like speeders though. If you get caught then, you get fined and whatever else they decide to do to you, to set an example.