Federal Trade Commission takes on Bloggers

[atRax]

"Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims."

http://ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

Alright so Bloggers now are responsible for their reviews on products. Now, will it be the same for others like cnet.com and so on?

And what can you consider "typical"?

Anyway if I build a site and gather only answers of the cloud that I like over a product then I am not considered the author of the comment put still make the public opinion of the reader fall the way I want.

[argonauta]

http://ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm
Anyway if I build a site and gather only answers of the cloud that I like over a product then I am not considered the author of the comment put still make the public opinion of the reader fall the way I want.

your opinion doesn't need to be unbiased or objective. You don't need to write nice things about the product you're reviewing.

For what I understand, the issue is: if you get paid to talk about a product/service, you gotta say "i got paid to review this product". If you get something from the company that might influence on how you review the product, then you gotta state what you got from the company:"htc gave me this phone for free for me to review. Microsoft gave me a t-shirt for reviewing windows 7", and so on.

[Jujumon]

Anyway if I build a site and gather only answers of the cloud that I like over a product then I am not considered the author of the comment put still make the public opinion of the reader fall the way I want.

you'd probably need citations and declaration that you are not the author.