The Federal Trade Commission is planning to crack down on bloggers who review or promote products while earning freebies or payments, the Associated Press reported Sunday.
This would, for the first time, bring bloggers under FTC guidelines that ban deceptive or unfair business practices.
"New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers--as well as the companies that compensate them--for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest," the article explained.
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 practice of free products for bloggers, most of whom are not bound by ethical guidelines that journalists have historically followed, has been making headlines for some time now. Microsoft, for example, created a wave of bad press a few years ago when it gave free Acer laptops preloaded with Windows Vista to several dozen bloggers.
Some companies have sprung up around the whole notion of blogger compensation and giveaways. The AP article mentions some of the marketing companies that have made a business out of offering bloggers incentives--free trips, products, gift certificates, or outright payments--for coverage. One of them, Izea, has been generating controversy in the tech press since it started PayPerPost.
Izea says that it requires bloggers to disclose what they've gotten paid for or what they've received for free. But with the proposed FTC guidelines, if a blogger fails to disclose a freebie or payment, both Izea and the blogger could be held responsible. The FTC could also take issue with the fact that for at least one promotion, Izea has said it avoided including bloggers who would be likely to give the company negative press.
Izea CEO Ted Murphy wrote in a blog post Monday that the company supports stricter FTC regulations for bloggers.
"The companies that should be worried about these changes are those that have no standards and no way to enforce disclosure," Murphy wrote. "We have invested millions of dollars creating systems that allow us to automate transactions and verify standardized disclosure."
But some bloggers, the AP article mentioned, are concerned that the FTC's efforts could go too far, possibly generating probes into posts that were written without any compensation, and possibly leading bloggers to post with more restraint. And some believe it would be better if bloggers created their own standards based on niche and industry.
Then there's this: does the FTC realize just how many small-time bloggers are out there? Championing business ethics is a worthy goal, but, um, good luck getting much done when there are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there and new ones popping up more or less daily. Ever heard of the expression "herding cats?"
This post was updated at 11:37 a.m. PT with comment from Izea.
DENVER--I have just arrived at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Thousands of the 75,000 expected audience members have already filled the stands; keep in mind, Obama is not expected to appear until sometime in the 8 o'clock hour, at least five hours from now.
Here's the man of the hour (or of several hours from now, anyway).
A lot of people in the stands are simply chilling, taking in the high-altitude sun, and snapping photos of the occasional media celebrity passing by. A good handful of people are also sitting with their laptops open, fighting the glare, and attempting to post their blog entries.
I have found a cozy perch to write this post in the CBS media tent located at one of the stadium end zones. (I'm writing on my Treo; outlets and Internet connections come at a premium!) It's out of the sun and there are box lunches to nibble on, but the perks stop there. Evening News producers, writers, and correspondents are huddled together, some casually killing time, some freaking out over deadlines that are seemingly an eternity away.
Without a doubt, there is electricity in the air. Like a halftime show, the stadium production team has provided a wide smattering of video entertainment. We just watched a tribute to President Lyndon Johnson, who would have turned 100 Wednesday. That was followed by the winner of a YouTube video contest who explained in roughly three minutes why he's voting for Barack Obama. The music interludes have also been clearly calculated to represent a wide variety of tastes to appeal to a broad demographic: the National for the young hipsters, Simon & Garfunkel for the boomers , and some good ol' country-western for the Colorado natives (who are expected to make up half the crowd).
Ooh, Michelle Obama sighting at the ABC media platform! I may be a seasoned journalist, immune to political hype, but on this stage, on this night, she's like a rock star.
The House of Representatives' vote on Tuesday for a journalist shield bill is a timely example of how legislation can be watered down surprisingly quickly.
Originally the proposed shield law gave a broad immunization to journalists, including bloggers who acted as journalists. But eventually it morphed into a far less protective form.
Here's the progression:
#1 Original version:
The term "covered person" means a person engaged in journalism and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.
#2 Second version approved by a House committee:
The term "covered person" means a person who, for financial gain or livelihood, is engaged in journalism and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.
#3 Third version as approved by the full House:
The term "covered person" means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person's livelihood or for substantial financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.
The original version was reasonably protective, and the term "engaged in journalism" was reasonably well-defined. But by the time our esteemed elected representatives got finished with it, a serious blogger who breaks news (but doesn't have Google Ads on his site) would not benefit from the shield. It requires "substantial" income, even though not all good journalism is done for significant financial gain.
By the way, all versions of the shield legislation are pretty milquetoast when it comes to actually protecting journalists. They say that journalists can be ordered to the witness stand as long as a judge thinks their testimony may be "essential to the investigation or prosecution or to the defense against the prosecution," which is not that significant a hurdle in practice.
I know this firsthand. The U.S. Department of Justice served me with a subpoena to testify in a criminal case in Tacoma, Wash., and then demanded that the judge declare me a hostile witness when I refused to answer certain questions. Even the weakened, final version of the House bill is better than nothing, but I fear it'll prove to be a very thin and easily circumvented shield in practice.
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