Bogus Reviews and Testimonials – FTC Steps In
The US Federal Trade Commission has this week announced new guides relating to Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers and Celebrity Endorsements. Internet Marketing Event Organizers take note! While there are many gray areas that need testing, e.g. Does is an affiliate relationship an “important connection between advertisers and endorsers”?
My reading is that affiliates who are not employees of the advertiser may not be caught in the net, if you are an employee-affiliate, there could be a problem.
The most worthwhile aspect to the Guide, for consumers, is that it brings a new transparency to Reviews and Testimonials – if it is enforced. But as the FTC has jurisdiction only in the US, it is unclear what the implications are for international internet marketers.
Here is a snapshot of the FTC Announcement, with a link to the FTC page:
“The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has approved final revisions to the guidance it gives to advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act.
The notice incorporates several changes to the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which address endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities, as well as the disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers. The Guides were last updated in 1980.
Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.
>>> Go to the FTC Announcement
Tagged with: affiliate reviews • review sites • testimonials
Filed under: News
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Affiliate marketers need freedom to promote their products, having to be made employees would curtail their freedoms, and stop the growth of products – since affiliates refer customers back to the owner, any grievance the customer has can easily be dealt with, and the whole process is transparent, this seems very disconcerting to me
Hi Becca,
I’m certain they are not asking affiliates to become employees. What they are trying to do is to stop merchants from employing people to create testimonials and ‘reviews’. These are considered misleading because of the employer-employee relationship.
What is of concern is whether the fact that affiliates receive a ‘commission’ by promoting products, if this becomes a formal ‘relationship’ between merchant and affiliate.
My personal opinion is that if affiliates use REAL testimonials (and not bogus ones, as is happening more and more), and that ‘reviews’ actually review, and not simply ‘promote’, then there is no problem for affiliates.
I’m interested to hear how others interpret this.
Kerry
After reading the FTC guide on the endorsement rules, I can’t help but feel that there is going to be a lot of confusion regarding the interpretation of what is a blog “endorsement”. FTC even admits that the guide is not comprehensive enough as there may be other activities that they may later on consider as prohibited endorsements.
I feel that an Internet Marketing seminar could include a portion where a legal expert can shed light on this latest development.
I think that’s a great idea Christine, and I have been at only one internet marketing event since the announcement where any mention at all was made of it.
The legitimate internet marketing world seems to believe the rule to be a good thing, and nothing to worry about. It is the more black-hat operators that should be worried.
Faked testimonials and endorsements are perhaps the biggest thing that lure unsuspecting buyers. So, while no internet marketer (or anyone else) is going to put a bad testimonial on their website, the ones that they do put there should be genuine.
Thanks for the idea Christine, I will include it in my ‘Suggestion Box’ for event organizers.