Full Disclosure
If there's one question that I've been asked over and over again since starting to blog in earnest, I'd have to say that it's:
Paul, can you provide a quick and easy method for getting grape juice out of white berber carpeting in an environmentally safe and responsible manner?
To which my answer remains the same today as it was in 1983 - no.
However, for those of you who wish to know whether or not I'm being objective when I review and recommend the many fine products that I'm wont to review and recommend here, you have a new way of being sure. Effective immediately, all amateur bloggers are required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC - which is almost, but not quite, the same thing as FTD) to disclose any financial incentives or free product they have receive and provide endorsements for.
And, since this is the government at work, the specifics of these new rules are pretty vague and difficult to nail down. Which of course means they'll be a piece of cake to enforce, saving you, the taxpayer, countless pennies. Or not. What differentiates an amateur blogger from a bona fide product reviewer? Good question. Like I said, the lawyers are going to have a field day with this.
For the sake of brevity though, if you're an amateur blogger and you write up a review or endorsement or even a demonstration of a product that was provided to you for free by the manufacturer, or if you receive any compensation from the manufacturer for your review, you need to disclose that. You don't need to disclose this information for past reviews, but you need to provide it for any future reviews/endorsements you may do. Failure to provide disclosure could earn you a fine of $11,000.
Or, you could probably fight the fine in court for ten years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars and avoid that penalty while putting the children or pets of several lawyers through college. Or, you could do what anyone with a bit of integrity should know how to do - disclose things that might lead people to think your opinion is biased, even if, in fact, your opinion is unbiased.
Paul, can you provide a quick and easy method for getting grape juice out of white berber carpeting in an environmentally safe and responsible manner?
To which my answer remains the same today as it was in 1983 - no.
However, for those of you who wish to know whether or not I'm being objective when I review and recommend the many fine products that I'm wont to review and recommend here, you have a new way of being sure. Effective immediately, all amateur bloggers are required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC - which is almost, but not quite, the same thing as FTD) to disclose any financial incentives or free product they have receive and provide endorsements for.
And, since this is the government at work, the specifics of these new rules are pretty vague and difficult to nail down. Which of course means they'll be a piece of cake to enforce, saving you, the taxpayer, countless pennies. Or not. What differentiates an amateur blogger from a bona fide product reviewer? Good question. Like I said, the lawyers are going to have a field day with this.
For the sake of brevity though, if you're an amateur blogger and you write up a review or endorsement or even a demonstration of a product that was provided to you for free by the manufacturer, or if you receive any compensation from the manufacturer for your review, you need to disclose that. You don't need to disclose this information for past reviews, but you need to provide it for any future reviews/endorsements you may do. Failure to provide disclosure could earn you a fine of $11,000.
Or, you could probably fight the fine in court for ten years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars and avoid that penalty while putting the children or pets of several lawyers through college. Or, you could do what anyone with a bit of integrity should know how to do - disclose things that might lead people to think your opinion is biased, even if, in fact, your opinion is unbiased.
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