New FTC Rules, Fines to $11,000 - Affiliates and Bloggers Must Read

I blogged some important news today and wanted to come over here to be sure everyone knows about it.

If you use testimonials on your blogs/sites OR if you do affiliate product reviews OR if you endorse products for pay (isn't that what affiliates do?) then you need to be sure to read this!

(Note to mods, too much info and too many links to copy over here and would be all duplicate content, so hope it's OK that I linked to the story.)

So what impact do you think this has on affiliates??? Obviously if you do affiliate reviews you should disclose. But a single affiliate link could be seen as an 'endorsement' of a product. Do you think affiliates need to disclose every affiliate link or what???

In yesterday's post I linked to the overview doc at the FTC and a bunch of news stories about the issue. But I neglected to link out to the OFFICIAL full doc.

If you want to read the detailed, legalese filled doc that has all the in-depth info, then you need to read this.

Affiliates, Merchants and Networks need to read the full PDF here
and make any adjustments accordingly.

 

One, that's a lot of text, do we need to put a big disclaimer at the top of our pages or something?

Two, is anyone worried this could kill sales?

 

Good post dude, i also received email from Frank kern today on same topic, he posted some good points,check out at http://masscontrolsite.com/blog/?p=59

 

To make things simple, I'll just stop using testimonials in my promotions. It means that we will have to think out the box.

 

It's not just about testimonials. That's only 1/2 of the issue.

The other one is you need to DISCLOSE if you are making money from reviews or endorsements. IMO "for the best XYZ product, click here" could be construed by the FTC to be a product endorsement. So does that mean we have to disclose every affiliate link? Certainly if you do product reviews this pertains to you and you need to disclose the financial relationship. But what about straight affiliate links and ads?

They specifically single out bloggers and "other word of mouth marketers" which to me is affiliate marketers too.

 

I'm sure there will be some 20 year old kid working out of his moms basement who gets to be the example for the media to put on show.

 

Thanks but that is a lot to read.What is the bottom line to we have to prove testimonials are real or what?
Can someone who has studied this give us a narrative?

 

Tony the link in the 1st post boils it down to the basics.

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HEY guys. This is pretty cool!

A tool to help you generate a disclosure policy and button for your site.

Disclosure Policy Generator

 

Thanks for sharing the disclosure policy generator 5Star.

Maybe you could answer this for me. I'm an affiliate marketer and fall under the umbrella of all of this.

I'm wondering HOW we're supposed to disclose that we're affiliates for the products we're reviewing? Are we putting this at the very top of the page something like:

"Hey I get paid if you buy anything here which essentially makes it seem like this whole thing is a scam"...

when the greater truth is that most of the products I promote are ones which I believe in and use myself?

And no, not that we'd disclose it that way, that was being sarcastic and cheeky, but you get my drift about how that's how it will obviously come across if that's how they want it.

So yeah...if anyone could explain how we are to implement this I'd really appreciate it.

 

I just blogged an important new update.

Now the FTC says they will not be fining $11,000 per violation.

FTC BACKS DOWN – the $11,000 Fine is Not True!

rbf738 - the article above also answers your question about HOW to disclose to some degree. The FTC basically is vague and says it's up to you.

What a lot of people are talking about doing is just having a disclosure policy page and at the bottom of your post having a link to your disclosure policy.

Note: A disclosure does not have to be negative and can even be turned into a positive. (I know you were being sarcastic.)

The verbiage in the disclosure policy generator I linked to a couple posts up is VERY well written, so I'd use some of that copy.

Disclosure doesn't need to be a negative thing either. You can actually turn it into a positive.

READ THIS!
How to Turn Affiliate Marketing Disclosure Into a Selling Point

 

Here's What I have on my dating affiliate site: It's an FAQ page where I ask/answer a lot of questions visitors may have about my site. One of my questions is: Is WebPersonalsOnline.com a dating site? Answer: ..W P O .com is a dating affiliate site, which means that we review and promote online dating sites, provide dating tips and advice etc...you get the idea.

Part of that paragraph explains that any user who clicks through and joins a dating site will generate a commission for us, but that it is ALWAYS AT NO EXTRA COST to them. At this point, we even tell them that, not only will they NEVER have to pay extra by joining a dating site via any of our affiliate links, but that they CAN ACTUALLY SAVE x% off XYZ dating site membership by using the following link (provide a link to any discount dating membership offer we happen to be running here).

Anyway, so we comply with the FTC, but also use their 'guidelines' as an opportunity to create a well--SEO'ed page (our FAQ page does really well in all SEs) AND also a unique opportunity to tell people about our site and PROMOTE any dating discounts at the same time.

I imagine anyone could do something similar with their affiliate site no matter what niche you are in.

 

How do you think the new regulations would affect articles marketing, especially direct affiliate links placed in articles, or ads placed on USFREEADS with affiliate links? Would disclosure also have to be made there in some way or does it just apply to a domain that you own?

 

yeah just read the same on frank kern's blog.. the thing i find most strange is that there is no way to define "Average" sales.. that is a very subjective term

 

I am all for cleaning up the scammers out there but man this sure makes it tough on the guy that just tries to market honestly. What about big pharma and others on television??? The government is getting too big and too invasive.

 

How would this new rules apply to affiliate store, i.e store makes from datafeedr, etc. Do we have to include a affiliate link disclosure on every product page?

 

I'm not a lawyer and you should check with one if you are concerned. But I would think one page on your site with a full affiliate link disclosure would be good. Then on each page you would need to have a link to your disclosure policy. It would need to be a very obvious link.

 

rksy, you are not from US, you simply can don't care

 

Linda saves the day again.

Good reads and thanks. Been a fan for a while.

 

It amuses me how many non-American affiliates are shitting bricks over this.

The FTC changes basically amount to nothing. The worst case scenario is they hunt you down (long shot), you miss the warning in your email, and get sent a C&D.

 

Or they go after the USA based company that paid you out and let it go from there.

2010 Is going to have a LOT of upset people, including a lot of people from outside the bounds of the FTC who think this has nothing to do with them.