ShoutingInDigital

FTC upsets Bloggers and Affiliates

Posted by James | Filed under affililates, social media

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is planning a ‘crack down’ on spammy websites – “as well as the companies that compensate them – for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest”.

Sounds okay so far – perhaps a bigger undertaking than the FTC can manage – but all in all a noble claim. What has upset many bloggers, affiliates and those with affiliate programs is this:

“The rules could be quite strict, even extending to the practice of affiliate links–for example, a music blogger who links to a song on Amazon MP3 or iTunes that earns an affiliate commission in the process.”

The updated guidelines – possibly with modifications – are expected to pass this summer. If passed, the FTC could actively go after affiliate bloggers who are paid in any way for their words.

Cracking down on those who make false claims as well as the companies who compensate them is, obviously, a great thing. Enforcing laws relating to false advertising and punishing companies who make false claims is important to ensuring consumers are adequately protected from charlatans and con artists.

Going after bloggers on the other hand, is not only an immensely time consuming process it’s also completely backward. Bloggers who create sites exclusively to promote products (which may be of poor quality) do it only for the sole purpose of earning money, even the FTC understands this.

So if there are 1000 sites all promoting a poor quality product, e.g. a banned weight loss pill, which makes more sense – to go after the 1000 sites promoting the product or to go after the company who creates the product, shut them down and give the bloggers no reason to promote the product and consumers no way of purchasing the product?

The logic here is questionable but it seems we will have to wait until later in the summer to find out what’s going to happen.

Tags: blogging, ethics