FTC Disclosure Rules: What You Need to Do

Do you understand the new FTC rules as they apply to your blog(s) or other Web sites?  If you have any advertising, use affiliate links or have ever recommended anything in your blog in a review or testimonial you may want to take the time to check out some excellent resources I found:

• Bloggers can use the question and answer process provided by DisclosurePolicy.org’s Blogger Disclosure generator to automatically create a disclosure document for their blog.
• You could write your own like the genuinely sincere, honest example written by Lori Falcon at A Cowboy’s Wife.
• Jim Edwards has posted an FTC interview – Long video (3 hrs 46 min) – also available in audio and transcript) that contains far more detail including a Q&A on how the new rules apply to specific blogger examples which I found through Beginner Marketers.
• SherryD did her research and shares her conclusions in Ironic Results of the FTC Disclosure Regulations including the specific disclosure wording and positioning she is now using on her Online Business Resources site.

You may also want to read FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials: Changes Affecting Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements on the FTC.gov site.

Dennis from Direct Sales Marketing Web shared these excellent posts from Lynn Terry at ClickNewz that go into much more detail about all the questions that may be raised:

• The FTC Update in Plain English - What the FTC Guidelines Actually Say – And What It Means (To YOU)
  In Plain English…
• New FTC Guides Go Into Effect Dec 1 – Answers questions raised in the Plain English post includes many FTC videos
• FTC to Regulate Social Media Marketing – Although written on May 18, 2009 this is still highly relevant and has tons of links and much discussion going on in the comments.

When you have a chunk of time, reading through all of these posts and watching the videos would be worth doing – just to make sure you clearly understand and comply so you don’t get visited from the FTC men in black

BLOGGERS on the FTC GUIDELINES:

• Kikolani – (Kikolani) – Do the New FTC Guidelines Affect You?
• ProBlogger – (Twitter) – A Screamingly Effective Blog Disclosure Policy; How (and Why) to Get One

EXAMPLE BLOG DISCLOSURES:

• Genuinely sincere, honest example written by Lori Falcon at A Cowboy’s Wife.

BLOGGERS RIGHTS:

We can not recommend enough that all bloggers support the EFF efforts to stand up for our rights to free speech, anonymity and right to keep recommending the products and services of those who deserve recommending.

• Highly Recommended: Electronic Frontier Foundation – (Twitter) – Bloggers Right information and their Bloggers Legal Guide – Legal Guide for Bloggers

Related articles by Zemanta

• FTC Guides on Endorsements and Testimonials: What it means in practice (thecustomercollective.com)
• What The New FTC Guides Mean For Product Review Bloggers (momreviews.net)
• FTC to bloggers: Fess up or pay up (news.cnet.com)
• NEW: FTC Imposes Guidelines on Bloggers Who Accept Promotional Gifts (blog.superiorpromos.com)

Tagged as: FTC blogging