Saturday, March 6, 2010

Endorsement-What?

There has been much made of what to do about bloggers and the blogosphere and their penchant for endorsing products through blogs. At this blog, we're not hawking any wares,1 but I did find it interest that the FTC appears to have finally come out and given us some guidance,2 as to what would be an endorsement.3 About time the government did something proactive...although to be fair this has been a long time coming, particularly with some much debate about endorsements and television advertising.4

Honestly though, the longer I write here and work in the legal profession, the more I am impressed with the FTC's attempts to make its decisions and regulations accessible to the lay person (read: non-lawyer). The Commission includes on its website some helpful (and thankfully short) videos explaining the application of the above-referenced Code of Federal Regulations5 to the average blogger and the "marketing blogger."6

The former advertising exec in me still gets a bit grouchy when I think about the wannabe blog marketers, but it could just be jealousy over free stuff that I'm not getting.

That is all.

1: But we'd be more than happy to start if someone is willing to pay us or give us free stuff.
2: No seriously, I would really like some free stuff.
3: Revised Endorsement and Testimonial Guides, 16 C.F.R. § 255 (2009), available at http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf.
4: See, e.g., Liisa Thomas & Robert Newman, Social Networking & Blogging: The New Legal Frontier, 9 J. Marsh. Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 500 (2009); Ann K. Hagerty, Comment, Embedded Advertising: Your Rights in the TiVo Era, 9 J. Marsh. Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 146 (2009).
5: 16 C.F.R. § 255.
6: See Federal Trade Comm'n, Federal Trade Commission's Advertising - Endorsement Guides, http://www.ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm.

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