Back in April of this year (2009), the Federal Trade Commission threated to go after bloggers by announcing plans to regulate the blogging world. Earlier this month (October 2009), the FTC made good on its promise by announcing ‘guidelines‘ that it alleges are “not binding law, but rather interpretations of law that hope to help advertisers comply with regulations.”

blogger in distress (photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/slava/ )

It is well known for quite some time now, that plenty of bloggers (especially the popular high traffic blogs) receive gifts and promo products from various companies. Quite often, these bloggers write glowing reviews for the products that they have received. These just announced ‘guidelines‘ by the FTC now require new media writers (especially bloggers) endorsing or reviewing a product or a service to disclose their affiliations, if any, with the product or service company.

The full text of the guidelines can be downloaded from here. One observation by an opponent of the ‘guidelines’ particularly struck me.

Similarly, the other commenter noted that the Guides should not “inadvertently regulate
everyday word-of-mouth communications among actual consumers regardless of whether such
communications take place in person, via e-mail or in new mediums such as blogs or social
networking Web sites.”

True. Besides this, the new regulations (or as they fondly call it, ‘guidelines’) announced by the FTC raise more questions than answers.

For instance

• What results for what products and services would the FTC consider as “typical” results ? Why doesn’t the FTC have clear guidelines on “typical” results so that bloggers who want to abide by the guidelines can ensure conformity ?
• How can the FTC attempt to regulate bloggers, when, by the basic nature of blogs the content is almost always an individual’s opinion ?
• How is word of mouth from person to person different from word of mouth online ? To be fair, shouldn’t the FTC also be regulating individual persons around the Country who are making word of mouth statements offline (at homes, shopping malls, community gatherings) about products that they may be getting paid to talk favorably about ?
• Why aren’t there any such guidelines and impositions on main stream media journalists and writers ? Why the double standards ?
• If Richard Cleland, the assistant director at the FTC is confidently stating that the FTC does not have the authority to impose a fine for a violation to the FTC act, why then is the FTC creating and announcing such ‘guidelines‘ ? Isn’t it simply encouraging lawsuits and putting money in the pocket’s of lawyers ?
• Why isn’t the FTC cracking down on Oprah’s Book Club ‘recommendations’, especially for recommending the book filled with lies written by “The Man Who Kept Oprah Awake At Night” to millions of television viewers ?

meow ! you better not be blogging this. (photo credit: www.karennutton.co.uk )

Are you tired of hearing “pro bloggers” tell you how much money they are making every month ? Don’t despair. Here’s your chance to get back at them.

You can now make 10,000 dollars in just 5 weeks of blogging. All you have to do is greet and entertain ‘bathroom guests‘, and then blog about it.

Even the job title is glamorous – “Charmin Ambassador“.

Too bad blogging has yet to reach the point where you can post and share smells.

Now wouldn’t that be nice ?

Apply here.

Tomorrow, October 15th 2009, is the wordwide Blog Action Day.  It is one day when thousands of bloggers around the world unite by posting about the same issue on their blogs, with the aim of triggering a debate of worldwide importance.

This year’s topic is Climate Change.

Register here.  Stop WILFing and start Posting !

I will be teaching an interactive, hands-on blogging class on Saturday, Oct 24th at PariSoma, a fun co-working space here  in San Francisco.

Click here to register for this class  !

The class outline is as follows.

Here is how you can fix the “No Sidebar Defined” Error.

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar();
?>


welcome to the blog doctor’s “daily rounds” blog. in this blog, i will help you with all aspects of blogging.

behind every healthy blog is a happy blogger.