The FTC issued guidelines this week requiring bloggers to disclose whether they have received free products in exchange for endorsements. It was as if the FTC had read my post earlier this week praising the ScanSnap Scanner and my voluntary disclosure that the fine folks at Fujitsu had not plied me with a free gift, and said, “We like the cut of Chetson’s jib! We’ll create mandatory disclosure policies for the whole country!” Thanks FTC!
Al Lorenz (full disclosure: I don’t know Al, and he has never seen fit to send me a single present) had a good comment a few days ago about the double standard. The FTC rule is enough of a regulatory overreach that it’s got virtually everyone up in arms. Jack Shafer, another stingy bast*rd who has failed to send me any gifts of value, has a terrific article in Slate about the whole thing.
But I do want to defend the FTC in one small way: many people, including some of the same now griping about mandatory disclosure rules on poor-me bloggers, have no problem with the regulation of other kinds of pay for play schemes – see, Payola, 1950s. So there’s some logic to the idea that if radio broadcasters can be regulated on content, so can any kind of broadcasters, including blogger-broadcasters.
