Last week, one of my colleagues alerted me of an article entitled ‘Advertisers brace for online viral marketing curbs’ from Financial Times. The article brings up a few interesting points, that may potentially affect the online advertising industry.
Revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials by the Federal Trade Commission, now under review and expected to be adopted, would hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and users of social networking sites who receive samples of their products.
The above paragraph contains interesting guidelines for marketers, rather than publishers, as it may hold companies responsible for making untruthful statements regarding products. However, one thing these guidelines overlook is experience. Every user has a different experience with product samples. So, a truthful statement by one individual maybe untruthful for another blogger. Furthermore, how can the FTC go through all the data of a social networking site?
While this has a ways to go before anything becomes formal, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays outs. In most cases, bloggers have been classified in various categories — ranging from journalists, commentators, and corporations.
