| | |  Technology News | June 2009 
Attention Bloggers: Big Brother is Watching
 Doug Thompson - Capitol Hill Blue
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June 23, 2009
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The ever-opressive Federal Government, not content to tightly regulate banks, auto companies, smoking and God-knows-what-else, now wants to extend the controlling hand of Big Brother to the blogging community.
Under new buidelines proposed for the Federal Trade Commission, bloggers will be watched by Uncle Sam for potential conflicts of interest and ethical lapses. The agency will soon have the power to go after bloggers who make false claims or fail to disclose conflicts of interest.
The hits just keep on a-coming.
Reports The Washington Post:
 | Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.
What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.
The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers - as well as the companies that compensate them - for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest.
It would be the first time the FTC tries to patrol systematically what bloggers say and do online. The common practice of posting a graphical ad or a link to an online retailer - and getting commissions for any sales from it - would be enough to trigger oversight.
"If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk," said Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices. "Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and ... they have an economic motive for what they're saying, that's information a consumer should know."
The guidelines also would bring uniformity to a community that has shunned that.
As blogging rises in importance and sophistication, it has taken on characteristics of community journalism - but without consensus on the types of ethical practices typically found in traditional media.
Journalists who work for newspapers and broadcasters are held accountable by their employers, and they generally cannot receive payments from marketers and must return free products after they finish reviewing them.
The blogosphere is quite different.
"Rules are set by the individuals who create the blog," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "Some people will accept payments and free gifts, and some people won't. There's no established norm yet." |  |
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