Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission issued revised guidelines that advise bloggers who make money from endorsements to clearly disclose their relationships with advertisers.
The main thrust of the 81-page document, “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” occurs in a statement on page 75, which reads:
When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.
Unfortunately, the guidelines, which go into effect December 1, have no teeth.
- There are no rules specifying how disclosures must be made, other than that they should be clearly visible.
- Furthermore, there are no penalties for violating the guidelines.
- Monitoring will be reactive rather than pre-emptive with investigations occuring only after a number of complaints have been made about a certain blog.
As such, scammers will continue to make false and misleading claims and those who don’t grasp the concept of ‘caveat emptor’ will continue to waste their money.
My recommendation – Be a Super Affiliate blogger. Post your disclosure statements. Make sure your visitors understand the difference between editorial, advertorial, and advertising on your site – not only for their protection, but also to enhance your credibility as a reliable source of information.
Build trust – build your customer base – increase your sales.
About Rosalind Gardner
Hey Rosalind,
Do you have any examples of what a sample disclosure statement might look like?
Should it be something we put in the footers with our terms and conditions or something we add as a site note in our blog sidebars for people to read?
If I was given a preview copy of a product, so I would endorse it and mail out for it, do I need to disclose this in my copy? Is that what this is saying we should be doing?
Jeff Mills
Hi Ros,
Thanks for positing. So does this mean we have to explicitly say that “Hey this is a an advert for a great product”…or something like that?
Or should we just say a small disclaimer at the end of a post that suggests taking a look at an affiliate product?
or…does the main disclaimer do it?
By the way thanks for being a light for us!
Matt
Hey Matt,
I disclose affiliations with advertisers in different ways. Here on NPT I have a ‘terms of use’ (because all of my readers are intelligent people interested in affiliate marketing, they know when I’m posting an affiliate link), whereas on my business-to-consumer sites, I post a link directly to a Disclosure – usually at the bottom of the page near the Privacy and Disclaimer policies.
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Rosalind,
Where on our blogs would you suggest we disclose this fact, that we are recommending products and we make a commission on any sales made? Won’t this hurt our sales? On a blog if it’s a post it will get pushed down by more recent posts over time. How do you keep it in an obvious place, like on the front page of the blog for example? Or should we just add it to a separate page? It would be useful to know your thoughts on this.
BTW… where have you put your disclaimer/disclosure?
Gareth C Thomas
Isn’t that what we should have been doing for the get go? Now I’ve got to be sure everything will be in place before December 1st. Thanks for the update. Paul
I imagine it would be ok to put a statement in the terms of use page on your website. It doesn’t have to be on the landing page anyway right? It could be on a privacy policy or terms of use page. Even if you flat out say that you are an affiliate, most people probably don’t even know what that means.
Rosalind, thanks for the heads up. Sure would appreciate some brief examples of wording you might suggest. Would it be sufficient to include such wording in the ‘About’ page or somewhere only once so we don’t have to do it for every posting. — Thanks.
My guess is this is something I don’t need to worry about since I live in New Zealand. Or do I?
Hi Rosalind
Frank Kern has just published a post on his blog drawing attention to the same thing.Frank paints a much more scary picture than yourself which looks like a minefield waiting to explode. I don’t want to over react to this latest release, however if they come knocking,I guess they will regard ignorance as being no excuse.
Where does the FTC jurisdiction stop.It seems to me there are a couple of grey areas, for example, will they flex their muscles if they receive a complaint regarding a US based product or service, even though the buyer may be in the US, the blog may originate from another country. Or how about a US buyer buying a product where neither the product or blog orignates from the US?
I guess to be on the safe side it’s best to avoid using any testimonial that refers to specific results,which then defeats the purpose of including them if they are so generic they are regarded as worthless, as that is exactly what potential buyers want to see, what success someone else has achieved.
yah.. Can you give us some wording examples for our blogs.?
@Jeff Mills & @fearspeaking,
I’m not a lawyer so keep that in mind when you look at my Terms of Use and disclosure statements… Here are a couple:
http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/terms-of-use/
http://101date.com/disclosure/
To generate your own disclosure policy, go to http://disclosurepolicy.org/
Cheers,
Ros
@ Geoff Baxter
I agree that it’s now a good idea to “avoid using any testimonial that refers to specific results”. I’ve personally never used those tactics – despite the fact that I COULD say that a good number of my students are now millionaires.
I personally don’t want to sell to those who wouldn’t pay heed to a ‘results not typical’ statement and go in with unrealistic expectations – they end up being more trouble than they’re worth.
And now those ‘results not typical’ statements have gone by the wayside with the requirement to state results that ARE typical.
Cheers,
Ros
@ Steve Anderson
The FTC isn’t specific about where to put your disclosure statements – so I will continue to post mine as a separate page accessible by link from the bottom of every page on my blogs.
Cheers,
Ros
Do these new regulations only apply to websites or blogs? What about articles with affiliate links that may be posted with article directories or ads (such as USFREEADS)?
Hi Lynda,
I would go the safe route and expect that the guidelines apply wherever you post advertising or advertorials.
Cheers,
Ros
“Furthermore, there are no penalties for violating the guidelines.”, this is cool..thanks for the info..
I was searching for info like this and came across your article. I found it to be very useful. Thanks!
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
I don’t have a problem at all with this. I know that one of our goals is to make money with our sites or blogs or we wouldn’t be at this site, but we also have goals of giving our readers and customers valuable information and if you follow teachers/trainers like yourself then you know that you can be upfront and honest with your customers and still make money.