FTC Blogger Guidelines

Since everyone else is weighing in on this debate, I suppose it's my duty as a blogger -- nay, as an American -- to throw my two cents into the pile of twenty thousand cents. However, I will take a contrarian stance on this matter, as the blogosphere has been generally against these new guidelines.

I think these guidelines are not a bad thing. Are they a great thing? No. I'm still trying to stay awake muddling through the 81-pages of guidelines. When I first heard about this many months ago, I was skeptical, but after researching it more, I've found that it's not the heinous piece of legislature that the blogosphere is making it out to be.

Let's keep in mind why these were written (updated, actually) in the first place. Thousands of companies, marketers, agencies, and publicists have been sending millions of free products to thousands of bloggers over the past few years. Something had to give. I find it less and less genuine when I find out that a blogger wrote a glowing review about a product and failed to disclose any relationship or free giveaways said blogger may have received.

The fact of the matter is, similar guidelines have been in place for other media for the past 30 years. The FTC is merely updating them to keep up with today's media. When I interviewed Richard Cleland, Assistant Director of the Division of Advertising Practices for the FTC, he pointed out that in those 30 years, they have never fined a media outlet. He has even recently stated that the ominous $11,000 fine would only be a worst-case scenario and that warnings would be issued as a first-line defense.

Let's take this a bit further with the enforcement aspect. Face it, the FTC, with all its governmental might, does not have the bandwidth to fine, let alone monitor, the millions of blogs and billions of blog postings out there. I feel this is intended to be a rule for rule's sake, so that the blogosphere at large at least has some direction on the matter. And the matter did need to be addressed, especially after the egregious use of astroturfing by some dietary supplement companies.

But that's the blogosphere's role, isn't it? To poke holes in theories? I heard a great line the other day, "So you're a blogger, huh? What do you complain about?"

Here's the start of a simple solution: cmpl.ly (pronounced "comply"). Go to http://cmp.ly, and simply append your blog post with the appropriate level of disclosure needed for your post. Instructions for use are at the site and are simple to follow.