Flogs Start Getting Flogged Soon

Are you a blogger who writes product reviews and also includes an affiliate link to that product in the hopes of earning a commission? Perhaps you are an Internet Marketing affiliate that writes reviews to the newest IM product being sold and links the review to your affiliate sales page? Have you written reviews on a pay-per-post basis? Have you ever written a fake testimonial so that the product you may be touting looks more appealing? (Shame on you for deceiving your readers.) These practices are referred to as flogging or fake blogging. You may want to think very carefully about those practices now that the US’s FTC has entered the fray and has decided to police the Net.

A few high profile scams lately using fake testimonials have drawn the ire of many consumer defenders, including some state Attorney Generals. While the practice of using “paid” reviews has long been a sales technique on and offline, the use of fake testimonials is downright disgusting. Once the FTC’s rules are in effect, you will have to be prepared to disclose the contact info of those providing testimonials.

Many advertisers will give a blogger a free sample and ask them to write a review on the product, they may pay the blogger, or they may offer some other benefit. Soon These benefits will have to be clearly disclosed. The rules would include a review of a book that you recently read and, as an Amazon affiliate; you have posted a link so that readers would be able to purchase the book. Perhaps you are a parent that received a free product, like a coupon to try organic baby food. You blog about how good you think the product is. On your blog, you will have to be very clear that you received a free sample. Everyone will be open to scrutiny, not just those that use their blogs to generate an income.

Offline companies are responsible for the actions of their sales reps and that responsibility will extend to online sales. It appears that the FTC will include bloggers, even those that blog for personal reasons, as a part of advertiser’s responsibility. This means that we may see many changes in affiliate programs as companies and advertising networks struggle to comply.

Let me be clear, the bloggers and/or sites may not be in the US at all. Rightly or not, the US has been long known to claim that if a US resident is able to access a site, that site and the owner of that site are subject to US law. The upshot may be that it may be easier for non-US based advertisers to require the use of geographic blocking technology be used so that US residents are not able to access sites that offer “paid” reviews of their products. This technology is available because the ranges of IPs that are used in the US are blocked.

My guess is that whether or not the FTC is the proper body to regulate is a topic that will generate many heated discussions. The FTC is currently working on rules that will change how bloggers blog about any products and they expect that the rules will be in place by the early fall of 2009.