U.K marketers - are you up on the new rules?

Hello fellow-Brits

I think the OFT policy, as shown in this extract from their site, has confused affiliate marketers.

"Online promotional activity, just like any other promotional activity, must clearly identify when promotions and editorial comment have been paid for, so that consumers are not misled.

Handpicked Media operates a network of bloggers and niche websites across a variety of sectors. Through the signed undertakings, it has agreed not to engage in promotional activity unless bloggers within its network prominently disclose, in a manner unavoidable to the average consumer, that the promotion has been paid for or otherwise remunerated."

The above refers to people who are actually paid to go and post positive comments on blog, twitter and facebook or elsewhere.

As affiliate marketers, we are not paid to say what we may say in email promotions or review sites. We only get paid if and when a referred sale is made.

However, to protect yourself from any likelihood of rebuke or even prosecution by the authorities, simply adopt the FTC guidelines and state in your TOS that although your honest opionions are given in any reviews of products, you may be compensated by the product owner only if they purchase products through your links.

We all receive email promotions from a number of well-known US marketers who boldly state something to that effect for referred sales, etc. This is usually at the foot of their emails. See which message you like and draft something based on that for your own use.

I read, somewhere, that even if you are not US-based, if your site is hosted on a US-based company's server, those FTC rules may well apply to you, too. Belt and brace yourself, I say, just in case.

James