More fun from big brother! It seems that the FCC has just announced that they will be fining all bloggers and social media posters up to $11,000 PER POST for promoting any company or product for which the bloggers has received monetary compensation or free products without disclousre to the reader.

Apparently in order to avoid this fine all bloggers and those who are posting promotional content on social media sites and their own blogs now need to disclose in the post when any monetary or product compensation for the endorsement took place.

The FCC sites that the reasoning behind this is to protect consumers and provide more transparency for the Internet surfer.

It is unclear as to the parameters of endorsement, I mean if I write a book review and I recommend the book, is that an endorsement, or what FCC considers advertising?

We can thank all the Internet scammers for this, as it seems that more and more fake blogs and false advertisements are being perpetrated on the net and the FCC feels the need to protect visitors.

Also, I’m not sure how easy it will be to enforce these guidelines, and the FTC admits that these are not exactly laws, but just guidelines, they say:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

So, I guess we need to watch our posts and paid reviews especially. I do not think this applies to affiliate links, this is only for those posts that endorse a product or company for which you were paid directly.

If you want to learn more about this and read the fine print, here is the link to the FCC doc, it’s a PDF file and the section that pertains to this regulation starts on page 55.

Personally I think this is just more of the government trying to regulate free flow of information on the net, and rescuing buyers from any personal responsibility.

The Internet is all about information, as a blogger do I not have the right for free speech and personal opinion? And as a consumer do you not have the responsibility to be vigilant?

What do you guys think about this?