FTC cracks down on Flogs and false advertisments

Ahh to me its a sign of relief.  To long I have seen scam after scam ripping innocent consumers out of their money and giving the honest internet entrepreneur a black eye.  Now the FTC is implementing tough new standards online and will be cracking down once the new rules are activated.

The FTC  are going after the fake testimonial, paid endorsements  and fake blogs or flogs websites.  Last year Oprah and crew strongly protested that their names were being used illegally to scam people of out of their money for items such as acai berry and other such health items.  Now the FTC steps in and hopefully will stem some of these problematic website. read all the new rules here

So what exactly is the FTC targeting ? There are a few issues that the FTC has and it mostly pertains to paid endorsements and fake customer reviews.   There are many flogs out there right now claiming that a company website or blog is an individuals personal blog and endorsement while in reality it is just a marketing scheme with sometimes real and sometimes made up individuals who are getting paid for the endorsement without disclosing the payment the viewer.   Lets say I write a website on how I got ripped using acai berry.  I write up a whole fake review of the product how I got ripped and make it look like I actually used the product and Im a real person.  Then also on that page I have fake testimonial from other users who used the product and got ripped also.  Then finally I might also have a celebrity endorsement that was never given.  All three examples are problems and no longer will be allowed to be used unless clearly stated that you are 1 getting paid for the endorsement and 2 those were not actually customers but made up examples of what could happen when you use the product.  The celebrity endorsement thing cannot fly anyway unless they actually give you permission to use their name on your page.

Another thing that the FTC will be clamping down on are result claims.  For instance you no longer can state you can make 10000 a month using this product.  You can say I made 10000 last month using this product as long as it is true.   You also should disclose that those are not typical results and results may vary from person to person and company to company .   I lost 100 lbs on this diet , stating this though even true may not be a typical experience and should be noted.

In conclusion you should really read the new guidelines and follow best practices when advertising .  If something is not true then you should not publish it.  I always found being honest you make a lot more money in the long run then running a scam on a few people.

tell me what you think .

4 Responses to “FTC cracks down on Flogs and false advertisments”

1. Michael Aulia says:

   November 12, 2009 at 3:03 am

   I’ve always been honest to my reviews and income statistics so far. Even if the gadgets/services were provided for a review, I normally reject writing a review when the product had so many flaws.

   But nowadays I normally put a note at the end of a gadget review that the unit was provided by the vendor for the review
2. Nishadha says:

   November 12, 2009 at 9:48 pm

   Although this is a good thing I think smart internet marketers can easily got around this. They almost always have a disclaimer buried somewhere in there sites. Another thing is a blogger can disclose these in there privacy policy etc which people hardly reads. I think this is a post after a long time btw
3. dee@ getyourexgirlfriendback.com says:

   November 13, 2009 at 9:12 am

   The ftc thing is very true this is going to be a good deal cause it will make internet marketing even legal
4. Ultra says:

   January 21, 2010 at 3:10 am

   I love your blog theme, can you tell me the name of it or where you downloaded it? thx.