Big brother is at it again. The FTC is planning to regulate the words that you use on any blog or microblog (think Twitter). If you make money through your blogs or Twitter, you are at risk. The new guidelines could be in effect by the end of the summer unless bloggers can stop it. This hits me – I review books and send my web site surfers to Amazon for purchasing all the time. And Amazon gives me a cut.
The FTC will soon be looking at reviews or endorsements published on blogs or microblogs and if they believe you are paid to review a product or service without sticking to their guidelines, you could face action from the Justice Department and/or have to pay restitution to consumers.
The guidelines mean you must provide full disclosure (who is paying you for what), you must be an expert, and you must be able to substantiate your claim. More information is in their 86-page document at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2008/11/P034520endorsementguides.pdf.
Of course, I don’t see any way to respond to the document on the FTC website. The FTC website today runs slower than a 1980 computer on 300 baud.
Spread the news, then, to get Jon Leibowitz out of the FTC and this idiotic regulation never implemented. This post isn’t copyrighted. I also emailed the white house asking for an explanation of this nonsense.
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What can twitter do for you?