Warning to bloggers: FTC may monitor what you write

by Michael J. Evans on April 14, 2009

in Guerilla Marketing,Online Advertising,Social Networks

Bloggers who take compensation for recommending a product may be held liable for any false statements they make about the product, if the Federal Trade Commission follows through with its proposed plan to start regulating viral marketing and blogs, according to Ad Age. The article says the regulations would also apply to content people post on social-network sites such as Facebook.

One of the things I found most surprising in the article is the amount of money spent on this type of marketing.  The article says product marketers, including Microsoft, Ford and Pepsi, spend billions on word-of-mouth and social media. PQ Media projects that marketers will spend $3.7 billion on word-of-mouth marketing in 2011.

The FTC will vote on the proposed regulations this summer, after a period for public comments. So, the FTC wants guerilla marketing to be factual?  I don’t have any problem with that.

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