The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finally acted to let consumers know that the reviews and testimonials they see on many blogs are only given, because the blogger is getting paid or ‘gifted.’ Although bloggers will still be able to accept money or goods for reviews and posts, they will soon be legally bound to let the reader know. Full FTC press release.
For blogs like this, that offer full disclosure, this means we finally get a level playing field; at least within the USA. Readers expect bloggers to be able to run a financially successful blog, they just want sponsor information made available. Sadly, many bloggers fail to disclose it.
The FTC and Twitter’s Controversial SUL
Will bloggers on this list NOW have to declare it in their Twitter-related posts?
This raises a question about the highly controversial way that Twitter has randomly ‘gifted’ certain bloggers with (literally) hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of traffic, via their Suggested User List or SUL.
I assume this means that blogs like mashable.com, will now have to declare, in each post they write about Twitter, that Twitter gifted them a place on Twitter’s Suggested User List? After all, in mashable’s case, this gift from Twitter has gained them ONE AND A HALF MILLION new followers since they joined it and (apparently) a huge surge in traffic.
For blogs like mashable, traffic equals money. This massive increase in traffic dramatically increases their advertising income and as such, is of enormous financial benefit to them.
The irony is that the most trusted bloggers, are those who clearly disclose their advertisers or sponsors. When Robert Scoble’s blog was sponsored by Seagate, he did not need to include a disclaimer in every post. He simply made it possible for every reader to identify what the business model behind his blog was. If they were interested, readers could see that the blog’s sponsors was Seagate. This did not stop the scobleizer blog becoming massively successful or people trusting what Robert wrote. I don’t always agree with Robert, but I trust him.
Open and honest works great!
Blogging 101 is to give your readers what they want. When it comes to news related content, people tell us time and time again that what they want is openness. It really is that simple.
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I never knew mashable were on the sul. Seems they are. That kinda sux.
I love mashable and gave then as an example because it’s a blog I read regularly. There are many others too. I wonder how many non-Twitter users even know about the SUL.
I do carry sponsored posts on my blog and this ruling doesn’t have any impact as I disclose all my sponsored posts. However, I wonder how this will effect SEO paid links of companies who pay bloggers to insert the links in their posts which is NOT a review.
Adam,
Thanks for the comment. From what I can tell, this won’t impact paid links at all. If anyone knows different, let me know.
Here’s my take on this issue http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2009/10/ftc-wrong-to-regulate-deceitful.html
Paul – way to look needy. Go to the guys site and pimp your own stuff.