I felt no need to rush to post on last week’s revised FTC guidelines. The momosphere has been so preoccupied with them for seemingly so long now, their formal announcement felt more like overdue confirmation than breaking news.
For anyone who has somehow missed the turmoil of the preceding months, the FTC has now updated the guidelines for consumer endorsements and testimonials to include bloggers. To quote from the Agency’s own press release, “the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”
For all those mom reviewers who have been posting clear disclosure statements for months in anticipation of the move – “this product came from PR agency X, that trip was paid for by Company Y” — this should be no big deal. Despite the fact that many felt that the ruling was unnecessary — as one put it, “my readers are not stupid, they know I’m not going out and buying all that stuff I’m reviewing” — signs are that most plan to comply.
Fast Company did a story last week that really addressed a lot of points related to this and I’d like to share it with you here.
Whether bloggers are journalists and therefore should not be regulated, whether their opinion is honest or influenced by the freebies they receive, and as annoying as it may be to have a government agency stick its nose into what a mom feels is personal expression, in the end that regulation may well help preserve the integrity and power of the momosphere.
Or will it? Now that moms everywhere will know that bloggers receive free products and are regulated, will they respect bloggers’ word more, or less? What do you think?
I would like to think that it doesn’t change a whole lot. I have always said whether I received something to review or bought it myself and although I have not specifically tacked on a blurb at the end of each post demarcating this information, I think my readers are intelligent enough to know the difference. Apparently the FTC doesn’t agree but it has always seemed pretty obvious to me when a blogger has taken the time to thoroughly evaluate something or merely parrot back PR copy. Neither one necessarily is negative but I have bloggers whose opinions I trust more than others because I know they won’t just say they like something because they got it for free. Trust is a very subjective thing.