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Another incredible move on the part of the government. The FTC is proposing regulations on bloggers! The proposed regulations could effect bloggers who review products or services as well as commenters. Facebook users are also potential targets.

Some of the more popular bloggers will review a product or a company for a fee, or perhaps just the sample product itself. Most claim to only give their fair and honest opinion of the product. They also try to stay within their particular area of expertise or subject matter. As far as I’m concerned, this is legit. Even helpful when the product is relevant to the blog.

The FTC claims it will only target false reviews, just as it targets false advertising. A Fox News report states that while the FTC makes these claims, not everyone is sure that the crack down will stop there. Even word of mouth advertising, as the web is purported to be, at least until they update the language to fit the technology, is prosecutable. And sure, we believe that this government agency won’t be abusive and overly zealous. Big governmental agencies never are right?

Many in the web world are up in arms over this topic. Should be interesting to see how it plays out, and the government encroaches more and more into the online space.

So, are you about to make a comment on the message board or blog of your favorite new product? Be careful, big brother is watching.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am and is filed under General, Politics, Search Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.