The FTC May Have a Say in Who You Promote Via Word of Mouth

So....you're the reason Chevrolet needed that billion dollar bailout from Uncle Sam!

Watch out the FTC is going to come find you for unleashing such a wicked marketing VIRUS on the US auto industry.

LOL...

I think that's a little bit of a fallacy there. This is more about wanting to make sure consumers understand the true nature of recommendations or endorsements.

All the fake **** blogs and "chedda gets cheddar" blogs that some people like are a good example of *successful* marketing, but not necessarily *good* marketing. It's certainly not ethical, and most likely actually destructive and damaging to its marketplace.

If you need to veil the nature of your recommendation, should you even be making it? If you profit from a recommendation, is it really all that bad to disclose it?

I don't know - I used to have a different opinion in my youth. Then I started reading stuff from Paul Myers and changed my mind. You can be 100% honest, up front, and still retain your integrity, and look COOL doing it.

It seems to me all the FTC wants to do is protect consumers from predatory practices. It make make our wallets skinnier, but it also fosters BETTER products and practices, and prevents the kind of predatory marketing that causes markets to crumble.

In the example you gave, you're giving an honest, accurate review of the vehicle. That's the kind of thing the FTC wants word-of-mouth to adhere to. Vs. made up stories.

"Some pigs are MORE equal than others"

The FCC is the Federal Communications Commission.
The FTC is the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC is the agency that handles consumer complaints. So, it is the FTC.

Okay, here is what I don't get. And granted, I'm not the brightest bulb on the
Christmas tree.

To illustrate my total confusion over this whole mess, let me use an actual
example.

I just recently promoted Authority Blueprint X. I got a review copy, read it,
liked it and wrote a review of it where I recommended the product. I then
put the review up on a blog.

Now, somebody buys the product on my recommendation, doesn't like it and
reports me to whoever.

What happens?

Do I get sued, thrown in jail, fined, what?

And based on what?

One person who doesn't agree with my review?

How much money is going to be wasted on lawsuits and, dare I say,
criminal trials?

How are all these people going to even be rounded up.

What's going to be the criteria for a case being "valid enough" to even
prosecute?

Am I the only one who sees that this is totally unenforceable without
sending this country, and others, into even more debt?

And what about fraud from one country (US) to another (North Korea)
as examples?

How's that going to work?

Look, I agree that people need to be held accountable but what's going
to be the criteria for determining a bogus review from a legit one?

This has nightmare written all over it if those in "charge" seriously think
they're going to be able to pull this off.

Or am I really 5 cans short of a six pack?

When you say "seems to be the latest trend" do you mean here in WF or in general over all marketers on the internet or just people you know..? Just curious where the trend seems to be located.

Thanks,

- Terry

FTC are they the government?(Im in europe), did you know that there are different kind of people then in varying of the departments field and goals?

In sweden the gov rule over, school, health care, roads, airways, spirits and alchool, and there's also only gov managed gambling here, everything outside are banned.

So I dont tend to say that everything Gov is bad, just because something did happen here in sweden recently in one of the departments.

Both bad and good of course, some departments do have more bad things happening for them than others I guess. Like the bankers, there a lot of trust there that have been thrown down in the drain. in my country.

But I know what you mean, people are afraid now days, even to open our mouths.

I have seen and know things you cant even Imagine, and I dont know how to let the right people know about it. People are just too busy too care or listen to other people now days.

Those who scream teh most get noticed the most. So, it's not longer what you say, it's how you say it.

And that's a big issue in european countries and america today.

I'm also sick and tired of all Medial coverages of things taht put my brain to sleep.The mainstream news channels and newpapers are nothing but negative and more extreme than ever.

I think there are bad and good parts of the Gov, could you agree with me on that?

How many years did Bernie Madoff run his illegal Ponzi scheme while no one did anything about it, despite warnings as far back as 1999?

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were said to be just fine, as their governmental overseers looked the other way as long as plush jobs and campaign contributions came their way.

Some of the biggest frauds and cases of extreme mismanagement happened right under the governments' noses, and they looked the other way.

And, people think that they can trust the government to only go after the "bad" people?

Look at AIG and the bonuses for the executives. Many of those executives were replacements for the executives that had screwed up. Those bonuses were specifically granted by government officials. Then, when it becomes public, they make the execs look like the bad guys. The politicians feed the public and media frenzy. The executives get death threats, threats against their families, and children! And, who is instigating the public? Some of the very same politicians who pushed for those bonuses to be given to begin with!!!

Government officials, for the most part, aren't fighting for you. They're not fighting for consumers. They're looking out for themselves. So, when the FTC, or whatever government agency, comes out and says they want to protect the public against such and such, very likely it is an attempt to justify and protect their own jobs.

And, yes, rules and regulations designed to "protect" the public often hurt legitimate businesses and honest people more so than the scammers and con artists. Honest people are, well, honest. But, the dishonest ones, the unscrupulous ones, they either don't care about the laws (because they'll probably have run their scam and vanished before they get caught) or they know all the loopholes so they can find ways around it. They know how to appeal to the public for sympathy. They know how to manipulate the media. And so on.

You know who scams more people than shady marketers selling hand lotion as pimple cream? You know who hurts more people and with long-lasting consequences than those shady marketers?

Politicians!

If marketers ran marketing campaigns like politicians run political campaigns, and if marketers delivered on their promises like politicians deliver on theirs, those marketers would probably all be in prison for deceiving, misleading and lying to the public.

If someone is on the Do Not Call list, marketers aren't permitted to call them. But, politicians exempted themselves from that requirement. We can't call people to try to sell them on a legitimate product, even with full truthfulness and openness. But, it's just fine and dandy for politicians to call people, and sell them a pack of lies and distort the truth in ways that would land a marketer in trouble.

And, you're going to tell me that you trust these kinds of people to just go after the "bad" people?

Abuse of power happens all the time. People allegedly get audited or checked on or investigated, not because they did anything wrong, but because they gave money to the "other" guy, or they were vocal about supporting the "other" guy. The "other" guy being the opponent of the candidate who won an election.

The more power you give to government and politicians, the more that power will be abused.

Don't get me wrong. I don't support misleading marketing practices. And, there should be protections against dangerous products.

But, here, the FTC appears to be crossing a line. If an affiliate or reviewer says things that aren't true, the seller should not be responsible for those things, unless, of course, the seller provided such information to the affiliate or reviewer. If a seller sells a hand lotion and says this lotion will make your skin soft, and the lotion does make your skin soft, and their marketing materials say it makes your skin soft, and the materials or samples they provide to affiliates or reviewer say it makes your skin soft, and a blogger says, "Hey, this lotion cures skin cancer!" then how is that the seller's fault? Unless you can show that the seller gave the blogger materials that indicated the lotion cured skin cancer, how is the seller responsible? And, what's to stop competitors from secretively encouraging people to make false claims in order to land their competition in trouble? Or, what's to stop someone with a vendetta against the company from doing the same?

If I sell an info-product, and I make no promises that it will earn you any amount of money, then an affiliate turns around and says "I made $10,000 a month using this system," how is that my fault? If I'm being open and honest about my product, but an affiliate is not, that's my fault?

And, how do you know the FTC will just go after the people with the highest number of complaints against them? Maybe they'll go after someone they view as high profile, to make an example out of them. Maybe they'll just round up a bunch and pursue them all, so they can make a case that, hey, we shut down 10,000 people selling shady products!

As was the motto of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review: "The best government is that which governs least." Or, as Lord Acton wrote: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

Another problem is that of putting too much responsibility into the government's hands, which tends not to protect people but to instead insulate them from accepting the responsibility of making their own decisions. Made a bad decision? It's not your fault; it's because the marketer convinced you to buy. (Which is the marketer's job, but never mind that little fact.) While there is no doubt that there are unethical and shady marketers selling unreliable or even dangerous products or telling intentional mistruths about them, there is also no doubt that a great many (though, of course, not all) people that are scammed were scammed because of their own decisions. Those decisions were usually made based on poor thinking, bad decision making or even greed. That, of course, is not to justify unethical marketing tactics.

Look at 491 scams, for example. Those are illegal, yet I still get such eMails on a regular basis. Government hasn't stopped these. The only thing that would stop them is for people to stop falling for them! And, the only way to do that is for people to be more knowledgeable about such things. And, the sad fact is that many people don't even try to become knowledgeable about things, because they expect the government to do that for them.

And, really, the FTC isn't catching up with the online world at all. We don't talk with our neighbors at the fence anymore. We leave comments on blogs. We tweet messages to each other. Our face-to-face contact has been replaced with electron-to-electron contact. But, government doesn't realize this. It views online content like it would a newspaper. It wants to regulate what is said or written, supposedly to "protect" us. But, they aren't understanding how we are using the Internet and social media. They don't realize how our social networks have become our virtual cocktail parties.

For example, consider Michael Hiles' comment earlier in this thread: "So if I tell my neighbor that Chevrolet builds crappy cars because mine was junk, does it mean I am liable for defamation? Or is it simply my opinion?"

Now, if you're his neighbor, you know whether or not you can trust him. You know whether he's relating something honestly, or if he's just a crackpot that complains about everything. So, you can make your judgment accordingly.

On top of that, even if he is being completely honest, you know that just because his car was a piece of junk, that doesn't mean all Chevrolet automobiles are. Maybe he bought it used, and it was the previous owner that messed it up. Maybe it was a problem with that model. Maybe it was a problem that had since been resolved and isn't an issue on newer models. And so on.

Now, if someone is walking down the street when you're talking to Michael, and he hears the conversation, and decides he's not going to buy a Chevrolet because of it, is that a good decision? Is it a good idea to take advice from someone you don't know? Plus, once again, it's just one example, and that's not much of a statistical sample from which to make a decision. It may mean that you check into it a little more carefully, but you wouldn't make such a decision based on something you overheard from someone you don't know, would you?

The Internet isn't much different, since we've moved that type of "over the fence" conversation to the online world. When we read a blog or whatever, we have some knowledge of that person. We have an idea whether or not they can be trusted. And, still, we just factor that in to our decision and don't rely on it as the sole source. We don't just blindly accept everything we read.

Granted, some people do. Some people believe anything they read on the Internet. Other people won't believe anything they read on the Internet. In both cases, such people are rushing to judgment and aren't clearly thinking about things. Maybe someone should slap them and tell them to wake up and start thinking for themselves!

You know what is the most dangerous thing for a scammer? A person who can think for him or herself! Scammers don't like to be questioned. Break their script, and they are often lost. They get defensive. They run off, looking for an easier mark.

Instead of the government trying to micromanage every area of our lives, if instead we just accepted more responsibility for our lives and our decisions and put more thought and effort into the purchases we make (or decide not to make!), you would see a dramatic decrease in the number of scammers. You would see a dramatic decrease in the number of unethical and dishonest marketing practices. And, with fewer scammers, there's a better chance they might actually get caught, without hurting or inconveniencing honest sellers.

Of course, you won't see that happen. You won't see government or politicians encouraging people to think for themselves, because you know what is the most dangerous thing for a politician? A voter who can think for him or herself!

Your discussion is very reasonable and intelligent. But, you are assuming that this bill is where the FTC stops.

My argument is that, while this particular bill may "seem" innocent enough, what's next? Then, what's after that? Soon, vendors and affiliate marketers alike are so strapped down in Government bureaucracy, that they can barely survive.

As has already been mentioned and as I mentioned in a related thread, there is absolutely no need for this legislation. We are talking about sales transactions made on the Internet. The Internet is the one tool that finally puts control in the hands of the consumer. Prior to making a purchase, one can easily perform further research on Google (or elsewhere) to find out if your purchase is right for you or not. And it can be done in a very fast timeframe.

We don't need the Government holding our hands all through life. Let the market handle the issue. The Government isn't needed in this case. It really isn't.

Prior to the Internet, it could be quite tedious to research a company, much less a single product. You had the Better Business Bureau and that was about it...I suppose word-of-mouth also.

Printing presses, radio, TV, magazines, newspapers and others do not have the interactivity provided by the Internet.

For example, when you are ready to buy a new TV, no longer does the consumer need to go store to store looking for the best model or price. Now, by using the Internet, one can search for hundreds of models and prices without ever leaving home...this is more power to the consumer.

And back on topic, if you are about to buy the next "miracle cream" and would like to know if your first source if practicing deception or not, start searching for answers. Don't stop at your first result, keep searching until you find all the answers you need to make your decision. If a certain product is bad, or if a certain marketer is practicing deception, you will find that info.

The power is most certainly in the hands of the consumer and the medium does matter. By using the Internet, it is easier than ever to find out if you are being deceived.

I do not know the quantitative results from the regulations themselves. I will stand by my assertion that the civil lawsuits brought by the consumers probably have a bigger impact than do the regulations.

Once again, in isolation, I would probably agree with you, but for the reasons mentioned above, I am quite skeptical right now. Bigger Government does that to me.

Sure they did, but not by themselves. It was the Government that colluded with the banks to make bad loans to those that could not afford them that started this meltdown.
Me, too. But the Government did not allow that and the banks did not want that.

So, the same Government that helped cause this should be the one that ensures the banks "do the right thing?" Who's running the insane asylum?

The Government is now telling the banks how to run their business. "Nationalized" is not an ideological buzzword...its an accurate description.


Simply follow the money trail. Which banks gave donations to which members of Congress? When were those donations given? Who was running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when this began and where are they now? How much did they receive in bonuses?

These are not the people I want telling me how to run my Internet business. I can do it much better without them.

While I have no proof, I would bet money on the fact that Madoff told his sons to turn him in, since he knew he was fried even before they mysteriously came forward. If nothing else, it would place them in a good light, and protect "their" ASSets.

You make a good point, and it's curious why anyone would be worried about this, unless they are bloggers and get paid commission for recommending products, or they setup blogs to recommend their own programs...hmmm....udder then that...what's the issue.

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