[totsolMC]

The FTC released a new guideline 2 days ago concerning endorsements and testimonials. This includes affliate marketing and blogs.

Their news release is HERE, and there is a link to the full report pdf there.

I had heard some rumors of these coming changes as applied to celebrity endorsements, but the scope of this in much bigger and hits much closer to home than that.

Every blogger, affiliate marketer, and online website owner will need to understand these guidelines.

Here is one interesting passage:

Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.

The full report is 81 pages, but is surprisingly readable by ordinary humans. My take after reading it... is that affiliate marketers are going to have to make some big changes in their advertising and perhaps in their business structures. Website owners and bloggers are simply going to have to carefully watch what they advertise and how.

The section concerning "expert endorsements" will apply directly to affliate marketers, and... big surprise... the new guidlines sound an awfull lot like Googles new rules.

In my opinion...this FTC guideline change is the real reason behind Google's latest witch hunt. Google does not want to be held accountable when the FTC comes knocking.

[Matt Belock]

I think it is more or less a scare. We are affiliate marketers or internet marketers, always stay one step ahead of them...

The internet is going to continue to evolve, but so are we... Dont wait for the answer discover it.

[Alan Mater]

Yeah, I don't know how they're going to be able to enforce it for one. And, the whole idea behind it is absolutely bogus. It's not going to "protect" the site visitors any. Just another reason for the government to get involved where they don't belong.

There's a blog post here with some interesting comments, including my own: http://getinternetmarketingstrategie...on-blog-posts/

[totsolMC]

Originally Posted by Matt Belock

I think it is more or less a scare. We are affiliate marketers or internet marketers, always stay one step ahead of them...

The internet is going to continue to evolve, but so are we... Dont wait for the answer discover it.

They obviously scared Google. If nothing else, that is effecting our business.